I spend a couple days working with this program and finally got it to work with newer versions of MAME and figured I would give a quick run down of what I did to get it to work.
NOTE - I am using Windows XP 32 Bit with MS .NET Framework 4.0, and the program did crash on me MANY times, but I would simply re-try, and eventually it would work.
I used this method for MAME V0.159, and used the CATVER.INI that I downloaded from
http://www.progettoemma.net/?catlist----
STEP 1: Use the mame executable to create an XML file. I did mine by opening a command prompt (Run CMD) and typing "mame -listxml >mame.xml" (without the quotes)
STEP 2: Download and unzip the Catver.ini file.
NOTE. The Catver.ini file you will get also contains version information, and is formatted slightly different than the versions this program was built for, so we will need to modify the INI file in order to make it usable in this game list editor.
STEP 2A: Open Catver.ini in Notepad or Wordpad (might as well use Wordpad since you need it for STEP 2B), and scroll about halfway down. There will be a blank line, then "[Veradded]", then the list begins again only with the version of MAME each game was added. Delete everything from this point down, its not needed for the Game List Editor and will just slow down parsing and increase the chance of the program crashing.
STEP 2B:
IMPORTANT - Now, in Wordpad (I tried notebook, but it just locks up, wordpad worked great), click Edit and click Replace. In the 'Find what' textbox put " = " i.e. space equals-sign space, (dont add parenthesis), and in the 'Replace with' textbox put "=" i.e. just equals-sign, (dont add parenthesis). Basically, we need to remove the space before and after all of the equal signs, the program was written for older versions of the Catver.ini files, and the older versions didnt have those spaces, so the program wont work.
STEP 3. Move the catver.ini file into the Mala Gamelist Editor directory and overwrite the one that is currently there.
STEP 4. Run the program, follow the prompt and find the mame.xml file you created earlier, then allow it to load. When it finishes loading it will ask you if you want to load the Genre information, click yes and wait. At this point it will begin parsing the INI File, this is also the point where the program often crashed on me. If it crashes, just reload and when it finishes loading the xml it will again ask if you want to add the Genre info, keep doing this eventually it will work.
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If you need to change to a different mame.xml (for whatever reason) just open malagamelisteditor.ini file and delete the entry for MAMEDB=. Just delete anything after the = sign and save, and next time you load the program it will ask you to find the xml file.
Hopefully this saves someone a little bit of time. I found this program quite useful for making a more detailed tree/gamelist in Mala, which helps me get to specific games *very* quickly.
Good luck!