Fixing Older Games that suffer from Graphical problems in a Post-Windows XP OS

Foreword:
I have re-titled this article to better reflect the topic.  Suffice it to say, this article deals with making older PC Games work in Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8.

Some games are classics that even a reboot won't fix or replace.  For many of these games, newer OS means you can't run game you enjoyed.  For me, I enjoyed Age of Empires 1 and 2, KKND Xtreme, and several other DirectX games that just didn't work in newer OS.  You may remember I also posted a temporary fix for this issue in AOE 2 a few months back.

Sure, you can always try reinstalling an older OS in a Virtual machine or messing with Compatability settings, but many times even this does not work.  But what if I told you there is another way to get your vintage games to work?  What if I told you a very simple programming can make a game work on your new machine.  What if I told you a secret to unlocking your games of yesteryear?

Nah just fucking with you.

A few months ago I got on a strong nostalgia trip to play AOE 2.  The problem is, the old AOE 2 and AOE 1 suffers from problems of color degradation.  This is due to some problems between the game and explorer.exe - Windows' Graphical User Interface (GUI).

One of the fixes I found was to open Task manager (Control+Alt+Delete), find explorer.exe in the Processes tab, and click the End Task button.  Then using Alt+Tab, get back into the program, and enjoy it without graphical problems.  Once you finished playing, you then had to again, open Task Manager, click on the Applications tab, click the New Task button, and type in explorer.exe to restart the Windows or simply reboot your computer through other means.

I had found another method that involved creating a Windows batch file that included the command to close explorer.exe, launch the game, and once you ended the game, it would relaunch the explorer.exe.  It was a brilliant solution, but I could never get the damned thing to work correctly - or really at all.  The problem was you needed to launch the batch file to actually do all of this, but this, too, didn't always work correctly.

Here is the sample command for Age of Empires 2 as found here:

In notepad, copy and paste the following lines into the notepad:

taskkill /F /IM Explorer.exe

age2_x1.exe
Start explorer.exe

Go to File --> Save As

File Name: age2.bat

Save as type: All Files (VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU SELECT THIS, OR IT WILL BE SAVED AS A TEXT FILE)

Place the file in this directory:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Age of Empires II\age2_x1

Make sure the age2_x1 file is in this directory as well.  It should be there already from installing the game.

You are done.  When the game launches, your explorer will close and the colors in game will be fine.  Once the game closes, explorer will come back online.  Hope this is easy for everyone to understand.

I tried this and could never get it to work for me.  Later on I decided this might work in KKND Extreme, which also suffers from the same discoloration issues.  However, I would have to change the name of the program and place the file in the KKNDExtreme folder and call the file KKND.bat.

taskkill /F /IM Explorer.exe
KKND.exe
Start explorer.exe

When I launched the program - KKND.exe, it didn't launch the KKND.bat - exactly the same issue I'd run into with AOE2.  So, Instead, I launched KKND.bat - it worked perfectly!  But then I decided I should try modifying the desktop Icon so that it launched KKND.bat.

Unfortunately it did not work because the bat file being launched seemingly from the desktop icon, could not find the folder KKND.exe was located in.  I realized, this was also a  problem I'd had with AOE2' bat I'd created - the bat file just hung at the command prompt.  I got frustrated and just went about exiting explorer.exe manually via the Task Manager and when the nostalgia wore off, uninstalled the game and went on.

This time, I wanted to spend some quality time playing the game.  So, I took another look at what had been happening with the batch file.  In order to get the command prompt to find the file I wanted to launch, I would give the bat file the specific address where it could find KKND.exe - the C:\KKNDXtreme folder by modifying this code:

taskkill /F /IM Explorer.exe
C:\KKNDXtreme\KKND.exe
Start explorer.exe

You can, of course name the batch file anything you'd like, but I felt staying simple would be best.  I also modified the desktop icon to launch KKND.bat instead of KKND.exe - success!  Now when you launch the game, it very quickly opens a command prompt to exit explorer.exe and launch KKND.exe.  When you Quit the game, it relaunches explorer.exe - slicker'n snot!

This method could very well fix many other older games that failed to work in Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8 - typically with the graphical discoloration problems.  If you find that ending explorer.exe resolves your discoloration problems, you owe it to yourself to try this method to make accessign your vintage games a little less laborious.

I'm hoping this might also solve problems in C&C Red Alert 2 which worked wondefully in Windows 2000, but turned out to be total ass in Windows XP and Win7.

Hope this helps!