Age of Empires 2 on Windows 7 has color issues

Anonymous
2009-05-15T17:57:15+00:00

Hello, i want to run Age of Empires 2 on my Windows 7 rc computer. But there are color issuse when i run it, the grass aren't green and the water isent blue. How should i do to fix this? I have try to run it complatify with windows xp service pack 2, and installd some driexct 9 drivers. but not result to better colors. I hope someone have a good answer, because i love this game.

Frozzare, Scout in Sweden

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Gaming

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Anonymous
2009-05-29T12:28:55+00:00

Go into task manager select the processes tab and end explorer.exe then alt-tab back into age of empires

Note: this will make your task bar disapear and any open folders

To restart explorer open the task manager agian in the aplications tab hit new task and type explorer in the box

The colours change because of the Aero theme's poor handling of colours

Edit:

You can also make a batch file with the following lines and place it in the same location as your age of empires 2 executable

taskkill /F /IM Explorer.exe

age2_x1.exe

Start explorer.exe

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  1. Anonymous
    2010-03-07T02:14:14+00:00

    Mate, I'm pretty sure the exe for the expansion pack is "age2_x1.exe," did you make sure you got EVERY instance of it within the batch file?

    Also, do make sure that the .bat is running from the game dir where "age2_x1.exe" is located, otherwise it will not work.

    Hope this helps.

    Capncoolio.

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-03-07T00:45:44+00:00

    Hi to all!

    Thank you all for the hints. I managed to play AoE2 with nice colors using the batch file that kills Windows explorer. However, when I tried to get the same for the Conquerors Expansion it failed. The game cannot even start. I tried many solutions but none of them worked:

    1. Using the same batch file replacing empires2.exe with age2_x1.exe and placing the bat into age2_x1 folder.
    2. Right click on age2_x1.exe -> properties -> compatibility tab -> Windows Serv.pack 2 + run in 256 colors + run as admin
    3. opening screen resolution window and leaving it open and then starting the game.
    4. setting screen resolution to 800x600 and then starting the game.
    5. Killing Windows Explorer manually first and then starting the game

    I have Windows 7 Home 64-bit and Nvidia GeForce GT 230

    Any ideas?

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-02-27T12:18:17+00:00

    Matey, I know there are a lot of potential solutions here, but I have made one that works pretty perfectly.

    I created a batch file with the following lines in (Yeah, so most of the echo's are my self promoting stuff but eh :P)

    @Echo Capncoolio's Age Of Empires Colour Fixer! Enjoy your working Age of Empires!

    @Echo .

    @Echo .

    @Echo .

    @Pause

    @doskey aoe2=tasklist /fi "STATUS eq RUNNING" /fi "IMAGENAME eq EMPIRES2.EXE"

    @taskkill /f /im explorer.exe

    @empires2.exe

    :1

    @if aoe2==1 (goto 1) else (goto 2)

    :2

    @Start Explorer

    @Echo .

    @Echo .

    @Echo .

    @Echo Hope you had fun!

    @Echo .

    @Echo .

    @Echo .

    @Pause

    If you paste that into a .txt file and rename the extension to .bat and place that bat in your AoE2 installation folder, this will solve all your problems and explorer will restart when you exit the game.

    If you want to use it for the expansion, simply change all instances of empires2.exe in the .bat to age2_x1.exe and you're off!

    Hope this helps,

    Capncoolio.

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-02-27T11:21:46+00:00

    Had the same problem.

    Solved it like this:

    Right mouse click the age2_x1 file and with compatibility choose windows xp (service pack 2) and choose Run as administrator and run in 256 colours (i have dutch version but this is the first option you can choose under the one where you can choose the compatibility.

    For me this worked.

    This game is really nice, one the best games ever.

    Hope it works for somebody else too :)

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