I am evaluating Mach4 on , my windows 10 pro laptop and seem to have a problem of Mach4 locking up and freezing at times, I'm pretty sure its not a problem with my laptop as it is very powerful and can handle memory intensive programs with ease, I do not have a machine connected to the laptop and my router is running Mach3 on another win xp computer, I'm just wondering if all will be ok if I run Mach4 on my win xp computer before I buy a license.

A qualified yes.
If you run Win10 you must use a motion control board, not the PPort. I would also verify that the plugin for the motion control card supports win XP as well.


Mike

sorry I'm very new to all this, so does this mean I need to get the plugin and a motion control board to run Mach4 on my Windows XP computer?

Their is a parallel port plugin that provides minimal functionality that you can buy, if that's all that you need.
But most people use an external motion controller with Mach4. Each motion controller will come with it's own plugin.