Age of empires II won't work via windows 10

Dude the game is not compatible with 10. Stop your nonsense about rebooting. It one of my all time favorite games and I can't play it anymore...

The MS support engineer is essentially wasting everyone's time with the advice provided.  "Take two aspirin and call me in the morning" would actually be more helpful.  At least the aspirin might help with the headache you're getting from W10.  Windows 10 no longer supports the secdrv sys driver, and if you are trying to launch your game from a CD, it will not work, no matter how many reboots and compatibility settings you try.  Secdrv made the operating system more vulnerable to attack, and it was a conscious decision my Microsoft to remove it.  They did it on purpose, and while it's possible backlash from this small gamer community may be enough to convince them to release a patch to once again enable it... I wouldn't count on it.  My advice, go back to W7 if these older games are really important to you, or buy a version of the game that doesn't launch from CD.

None of the references above answer the original question.  Would think that since Age of Empires is a game developed by Microsoft that a more explicit answer would be available.  Disappointed.

If the problem is with the Disk launch sequence, how about a patch that would allow us to copy our Disk to Hard Drive, patch & run from there.

Age of Mythology has the same problem, and I do not want different versions, regardless of cost.

I've been told that Slysoft's Game Jackal pro will do that, but I don't currently have the ≈$32 for the download. Wish I could give firsthand info. If I understood the MS tech correctly, no patching to accommodate older discs is going to be done.