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
    2010-02-22T19:12:49+00:00

    Wow, Nice reply. Kidding :)

    Not to worry, I myself have uploaded the files and have tested with Mcafee.

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-02-22T15:32:25+00:00

    Veeresh Halagegowda wrote:

    Use this to play without any graphics issues, no ending explorer.

    http://www.mediafire.com/?mk2mdlznnoy

    Just copy the files from this folder and start the game using AOC, Works fine with multiplayer.

    Yup, and get Viruses for free - of course this is a joke.. or maybe not ;)

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-02-22T15:06:50+00:00

    Hello guys, 

    Use this to play without any graphics issues, no ending explorer.

    XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

    Just copy the files from this folder and start the game using AOC, Works fine with multiplayer.

    Heil AOE

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-01-17T03:56:48+00:00

    Everyone,

    I found two alternatives that work.  The first one was listed on a Microsoft technet site.  The address is

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproappcompat/thread/a1763d12-11e2-498f-9b23-122792b14f74.

    What this fix does is tells you to fix the problem by doing the following steps:

    1. start AOE2
    2. press ctrl-alt-del and launch the task manager
    3. select the processes tab and click on explorer.exe
    4. click the end process button - Doing this will make your taskbar disappear and open folders
    5. alt-tab back to Age of Empires.  You will see that the grass and water look awesome.

    The problem is that the aero themes don't know how to handle the underlying map.

    The other way to fix the problem is more complicated.  Even though I have a genuine Intel quad-core processor, I don't have hardware virtualization so I couldn't use Microsoft's Virtual Windows.  But I downloaded and installed Sun's Virtual Box.  I installed Windows XP, service pack 2 as the OS and it works awesome.  My computer has 1 TB of disk space and 8 GB of ram.  I can have Virtual Box running, Windows Media Player with live TV and Internet Backgammon going.  Together they use about 45% of my processor and maybe 60% of my RAM so I think it's a good solution.

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