Need MAME help / advice

[MPTech]

I built my Cab about 7 or 8 years ago and installed MAME, MAMEwah, VisualPinball, FuturePinball. Atari2600, SNES, and Sega.
I've really enjoyed my Cab and it worked great up until about 2 years ago, due to some PC issues and I just haven't had the time to address it.
I've been out of the loop for over 2 years and forgot everything.
I've built a new PC  to re-install everything.
I can still access the old PC and files, but I don't want to try to repair that PC.

My new PC is running Win7 64-bit.
I want to install MALA as the front-end, but I'm having trouble getting started with the MAME install.
Does my Command-line MAME need to be the same version that was originally installed with my ROMs or can I use the latest version? ( a friend tried to install a later MAME version with my ROM set on his Cab and found that some games didn't work (Galaga!!).

Can someone direct me where to start looking? I googled MAME wiki and MAME-world and can't find anything! (did things change??)
Is there a MAME Command-line Install document?

Sorry if these are noob questions, I don't know where to re-start(?)

Thanks guys!  Looking forward to getting this going again (better than original!)

[Scott87z]

Mame rom sets are for a specific version of mame.  You can't use the latest version of mame with your rom set from years ago.  There is a good guide on using clrmamepro at http://retro-roms.blogspot.com/2010/01/clrmamepro-lesson-1.html on how to convert your roms.  You will need to obtain the same version of roms as your new version of mame first.  If you want to get up and running fast though you could just find the same version of mame that you were running prevously.

[MPTech]

OK, that's what I thought, but I wanted to confirm it.
I found the version of MAME that I was running when I installed the ROM set originally and that's what I'll use.

Thanks!