I use Mala a lot of another machine but haven't done a new install in over a decade.
Mala is 1.7.4 ; Mame is 0.200 ; mame.xml is version 1.0 ; WinXP SP2
When refreshing list, it complains about controls.ini then later ends with no games found.
There are clearly four in the roms folder.
I have tried the initial setup more than once and I'm making zero head way. This wasn't supposed to be the hard part.