Well i reinstalled it and downloaded all the stuff and it worked.
Hoorah!

Ok i copied and renamed the starcon.key and here is what happened

Code:

C:\Program Files\The Ur-Quan Masters>uqm
The Ur-Quan Masters v0.3 (compiled Sep  5 2003 03:55:46)
This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY;
for details see the included 'COPYING' file.

Saved games are kept in C:/Documents and Settings/Marius/Programdata/uqm/sav
Initializing SDL (pure).
SDL driver used: directx
SDL initialized.
Initializing Screen.
Set the resolution to: 640x480x32
Initializing SDL audio subsystem.
SDL audio subsystem initialized.
Initializing MixSDL mixer.
MixSDL using driver 'SDL_audio'
MixSDL Mixer initialized.
   opened dsound at 44100 Hz 16 bit stereo, 4096 samples audio buffer
Initializing sound decoders.
Sound decoders initialized.
1 joysticks were found.
The names of the joysticks are:
   Driver for Microsoft PC-styresp
Kernel failed to load!

Wouldn't it be easier to provide a link to a spare keys.cfg?

I found the uqm folder with the save and teams folder in it, but alas no keys.cfg was to be found.
And the Starcon.key file is in my contents zip.
But when i think about it i did install it in another folder than the default first, but then the game didn't find the data it was looking when i tried starting it up for so i uninstalled it and reinstalled it in the default folder.

I'm using XP.
And i have all the files neatly placed in contents/packages.
This is the first time i've installed it, and there is no programdata/uqm either

Whenever i try to start up the game it gives me this baloney!

Code:

C:\Program Files\The Ur-Quan Masters>uqm
The Ur-Quan Masters v0.3 (compiled Sep  5 2003 03:55:46)
This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY;
for details see the included 'COPYING' file.

Saved games are kept in C:/Documents and Settings/Marius/Programdata/uqm/save/.
Initializing SDL (pure).
SDL driver used: directx
SDL initialized.
Initializing Screen.
Set the resolution to: 640x480x32
Initializing SDL audio subsystem.
SDL audio subsystem initialized.
Initializing MixSDL mixer.
MixSDL using driver 'SDL_audio'
MixSDL Mixer initialized.
   opened dsound at 44100 Hz 16 bit stereo, 4096 samples audio buffer
Initializing sound decoders.
Sound decoders initialized.
1 joysticks were found.
The names of the joysticks are:
   Driver for Microsoft PC-styresp
Error: Could not copy default key config to user config dir: No such file or directory.

And now the manual says that it's in my "C:\Documents and Settings\YourName\Application Data\" folder, but lo and behold there is no Application Data folder.

Help would be much appreciated.