Age Of Empires 1 and 2 not working on Windows 7 PC

[richardf77]

I have been a fan of this game for years and in the past have continued to be able to play it whenever i have upgraded my PC. Within the last year or so though i have been unable to get the game to work on my windows 7 desktop (3yo Packard Bell). Both AOE1, Rise of Rome and AOE2 Kings will install but fail to open once installed. I can however run the game sucessfully on an old XP desktop (Compaq), albeit with graphics issues.

I have tried running the games in compatability mode for Vista XP an even 98 to no avail. What could be wrong? Has some update or patch to the OS or associated systems made the games incompatible with my system or is the game just too old for a modern PC?

Any ideas? Would be nice to get it going again and not have to hang on to an old pc just to play it.

Thanks

[Calum]

In compatibility options, have you tried the other tick boxes?  Some of them can be helpful in getting older systems to run, it's worth trying with each of those.
If that doesn't help, try disabling the Aero theme entirely by switching to Windows basic temporarily, to see if that helps as sometimes Aero can cause problems with older games.

[richardf77]

I switched the theme from aero to basic and both games worked first time without resorting to compatibilty modes. Does this mean that i cant personlaise my desktop if i want to run the games? Would changing the background/desktop wallpaper mess things up again by taking the appearance setting s out of basic mode?

One issue i have with running the games in windows 7 is the graphics which in AOE2 particularly are not as they should be. Are there any further settings that can be changed to put this right?

Thanks

[Calum]

I switched the theme from aero to basic and both games worked first time without resorting to compatibilty modes. Does this mean that i cant personlaise my desktop if i want to run the games? Would changing the background/desktop wallpaper mess things up again by taking the appearance setting s out of basic mode?

The wallpaper can be changed without dropping back into Aero, just don't change the theme back.  You can always save a custom theme for Aero and one for Basic, and switch between them easily.  It's worth trying the tickbox under compatibility to disable visual themes, that may also work without you having to go to the Basic theme.

One issue i have with running the games in windows 7 is the graphics which in AOE2 particularly are not as they should be. Are there any further settings that can be changed to put this right?

Buy Age Of Empires 2 HD?    Seriously though, I'm unsure because I haven't played any of the AoE games, so not only do I not know first hand what they're meant to look like, I also don't know of any specific workarounds other than just Googling it myself.

[BC_Programmer]

Re: AOE palette bug-

AOE1 and AOE2 use 8-bit indexed colour palettes. What this means is it get's to choose 256 colours fro a larger set and then use those.

The issue is that, with windows and 256 colours, 256 colour modes work by way of asking applications what colours they need. Applications can then say to windows "Well, I would like these colours, but at the very least, I need these ones" and Windows will do it's best to preserve the palette colours for all applications.

AOE and AOE2, for example, have their own set of 256 colours that they use for everything. Normally, since it 's a full-screen, foreground application, this has no issue, because nothing else is usually holding colours hostage in the palette.

Windows 7 (and Windows Vista as well) I believe, however, do. There are some palette colours that Windows Explorer (eg. the taskbar/start menu application) refuses to let go of, which makes for weird magenta outlines and bits of weird colours.

The solution for windows Vista and 7 is to kill explorer.exe before you launch it. I personally use a batch file:

Code: [Select]

taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Age of Empires II\empires2.exe"
echo press any key to restart explorer...
pause
start explorer.exe
This will kill explorer, start the game, and then when  you finish wait for you to press a key in the command window, and then restart explorer. This same technique is required for appropriate visuals in many older games that use 256 colour modes. (Command & Conquer being just one other example).

[Calum]

Ah, that makes a lot of sense BC, thanks for the info.  I'd heard of killing explorer being a workaround, but I wasn't sure of the reason.  Do you know if StarCraft would also have the same bug, or not?  Because in Windows 7 I found that StarCraft would sometimes, after a little while of playing, have the colours go all crazy and the game became unplayable, it required a restart of the game to fix.

[BC_Programmer]

Ah, that makes a lot of sense BC, thanks for the info.  I'd heard of killing explorer being a workaround, but I wasn't sure of the reason.  Do you know if StarCraft would also have the same bug, or not?  Because in Windows 7 I found that StarCraft would sometimes, after a little while of playing, have the colours go all crazy and the game became unplayable, it required a restart of the game to fix.

Most likely. Usually it shows up in any game that uses 8-bit colour. (Of course many such games had their own bugs related to the palette too)

[mohmad]

Anybody out there who can help please do. It is about Age of Empire II. It starts good in Windows Me and Windows XP.  I started Windows7 3years ago and since then I installed Age of Empire II but won't start. Tried everything possible but the answers are hopeless.
In this forum I got many tips and tried but also fail. 

[richardf77]

Has anyone managed to get this game working in windows 10 at all? Recently I decided to try it for the first time since upgrading to 10 and while the CD loaded and the game appered to install it would not run. I had it working fine on 7.

Strangely though the older AOE 1 runs absolutely fine on 10 with virtually no system adjustments, wheras on 7 the display settings needed altering to get it running properly.

Any fixes for AOE 2 or is it RIP for that game (or find an old PC to run it on)?

[BrianVrtLee]

I am having problems connecting my 2 computers to multiplayer.  One is XP one is windows 7.  I can create the room and find my xp with my windows 7 but it wont let me join the room.  When I try to join my Xp from the windows 7 in reverse roles I cannot even find the room.  I am running it through my rotor at home and both computuers will show a different IP

[Dumb_Question]

I know this an old post in an old thread, and Richard has probably found an answer, but just in case he hasn't...

Has anyone managed to get this game working in windows 10 at all? Recently I decided to try it for the first time since upgrading to 10 and while the CD loaded and the game appered to install it would not run. I had it working fine on 7.

Strangely though the older AOE 1 runs absolutely fine on 10 with virtually no system adjustments, wheras on 7 the display settings needed altering to get it running properly.

Any fixes for AOE 2 or is it RIP for that game (or find an old PC to run it on)?

 

Many people have got AoE II (Age of Kings) and The Conquerors and AoE  III and The War Chiefs and  The Asian Dynasties to (including myself) to run under Windows 10

Can't remember exactly how though. Vaguely it's a question selecting compatibility mode (sometimes on install) and installing the appropriate patches.  Check aslso you've .NET 3.5.1 and there's something else too Direct Draw maybe applied. (I think these are under 'Features' in CP)

Search the internet for the best way for you - the answer is out there !

Dumb_Question
5.September.2019

5.September.2019   

[2x3i5x]

Just in case somebody comes across this old thread and is still looking for an answer ....

Came across this reddit thread on the topic, seems like somebody got it to run on windows 7 --> https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/81tfxe/running_original_age_of_empires_2_on_windows_7/


The original AOE3 + the two expansions are both currently installed on my win 10 machine and am playing it without a problem. Did not have to do anything special to get them to work. Just had to get the latest released patch so that you can play without needing to hunt down the discs

[Dumb_Question]

Thanks 2x3i5x, but I can't find a useful post, on that page there are lots of irrelevant posts and even when I tried to narrow it down by 'searching' there are still lots although more relevant.

However, I moved on to trying install The Conquerors
I found that I needed the v1.5 patch to get anywhere after a trivial install.  I found that to install I needed to use The Conquerors disc from the same collectors edition as the AoK came from: using a different one it simply failed to install (small box with a yellow triangle ?)
The v1.5 patch was non trivial to install but not that difficult either.  There were some settings that I had to uninstall & reinstall again to get right, but after that it seemed to play perfectly.

This only now leaves the problem of playing The Age Of Kings on Windows 7

Dumb_Question
6.September.2019

[2x3i5x]

This only now leaves the problem of playing The Age Of Kings on Windows 7

Dumb_Question
6.September.2019

Good luck!

A thought came to mind ... might not be an ideal solution, but to play old games via a virtual machine (i.e., virtualbox or VMWare) Doesn't beat installing the game natively on the host system anyway but at least if it works, it's playable for the meantime