Age of Empires II does not work with Vista or Windows 7

Anonymous
2009-11-24T16:43:16+00:00

I have been unable to get Age of Empires II to work on my laptop - first with Vista and now with Windows 7.

It installs OK and when you go to launch it the small graphic launch box comes up, then the screen goes phsychedelic before reverting back to normal and nothing more happens.

It is a Compaq Presario with a Mobile Intel R45 chipset.

Any advice?

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Gaming

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Anonymous
2009-12-02T14:15:24+00:00

RusFry,

    If you were not able to get the game to run in this same PC with Vista or Windows 7, then it appears that there is a hardware conflict with this game.  I see that this game was for older systems and only supports 800x600 graphics.  You may want to turn your desktop resolution down to 800x600 with 256 colors, then launch the game.  If this doesn't help then you may want to install DirectX 9 and see if that helps.

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  1. Anonymous
    2011-02-14T07:43:01+00:00

    I know right???

    I have the game as well and have tried for months to get it to start on my Toshiba laptop that runs Windows 7.

    I get the same error message about DirectDraw.

    My system does meet the minimum requirements

    Compatibility mode does not work for any earlier version of Windows selected.

    I've updated DirectX in every way possible.

    I've downloaded the aoe2 patch.

    The game still doesnt work.

    Now, I know very little about video cards, but I know my dad has the same laptop and the game runs just fine on his.

    I've tried opening it with 256 colors and 800x600 resolution

    I've tried disabling my graphics card and got the same message.

    DirectX says DirectDraw is enabled. 

    It should be pointed out that one time (I don't know how or why) I got the game to start up.  about six months ago and i did nothing different from normal.  It hasnt started again since. But this means i know it is capable of working on this machine.

    Also, I never got this error until recently; before it would just go to a black screen until I ctl+alt+deleted my way out of it.

    I'm begging you Microsoft people to figure this out for me, to find a way to get rid of this error message...

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-12-16T16:03:49+00:00

    hi everyone

    i have the same problem in Win 7 that this game doesn't work on it when i had XP it worked but not now it was installed correctly but when i launch it it comes that could not initialize graphics system.Make sure that your video card and driver are compatible with DirectDraw.

    I don't know why this always appears even i meet the requirements of the game even without a video card can anyone plzz tell me how and what problem do i have and how can i solve it?

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-11-18T15:07:57+00:00

    I have a problem with my AOE II that I have not seen on the forum. Maybe I didn't search enough. My bug is when I'm playing. After, like, 30 minuts, my computor freezes. I can't ctr alt delete, I have to turn off my computor by the power button. My CDs are good, I've played before with them on a XP computor. I've changed my compatibility and it doesn't work neither. What should I do? Thank you.

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-09-26T08:51:31+00:00

    I'm having an issue just getting the game to run in Windows 7. Every time I do, I see the pregame "loading" window, then an error message pops up that says: "Could not initialize graphics system. Make sure that your video card and driver are compatible with Directdraw."

    Can anyone help? I thought that the point of "compatibility" settings was to avoid these issues. I've tried multiple settings on the compatibility tab, running as administrator and as not administrator, I've downloaded the latest and greatest DirectX, I've reduced resolution to 800x600. This is extremely frustrating.

    Also as a general help, what is Directdraw? From what I can tell it was packaged into the DirectX software, so I thought that should be fixed now that I installed it.

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