Age of Empire II color issue on Windows 7

There’s a color issue with Age of Empires 2 on Windows 7. You will get a corrupted color in game. Its not a driver issue or some directx compatibility. I think its just because of the Aero theme’s poor handling of colors.

So how to fix it? simply..

Change to Windows Classic Theme
Open the resolution changer window (Right click on your desktop, and select “Change Resolution”)
Run Age of Empire game.

Now the color problem has gone.

Sounds silly?? nope.. IT WORKS!
Believe me, it really works..

Sovrn

10 Comments

Hackzor on February 28, 2010 at 7:52 pm

There is a better fix…

Kill explorer.exe then start AGE2.

Nothing will screw up.

xyz on January 27, 2011 at 6:09 pm

Why do you think killing explorer.exe is better fix? I would rather go for screen resolution fix..easy and not complicated
Reply
- Bryan on June 20, 2012 at 12:39 pm
  
  Killing the explorer.exe is easier then changing the theme settings.
  
  Heres a solution:
  Create a batch file that will both kill the explorer.exe file and start the Game.
  
  After the game is ended, the explorere.exe will re-open.
  
  So it’s hassle free!
  
  Code:
  
  taskkill /F /IM Explorer.exe
  age2_x1.exe
  Start explorer.exe
  
  Open with notepad and save as Age2Start.bat
  Reply
  - Fabio on November 27, 2012 at 7:51 am
    
    One problem, the Kill Explorer thing don’t work for me
    Reply