![\"image\"](\"http:\/\/gadgets.itwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/image5.png\" "\\"image\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nIt\u2019s playable, but that purple-stained sea and mottled grass is just not how it should be.<\/p>\n
Fortunately there is a fix, and you can get Age of Empires 2 looking like this instead:<\/p>\n
The fix? Terminate the Explorer process. Here\u2019s what you do:<\/p>\n 1. Run Age of Empires 2 Presto! the graphics now work.<\/p>\n Once you are done playing, exit Age of Empires. If Task Manager is no longer running, press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to get it back. Then click Applications, New Task, and type Explorer in the dialog. Click OK and your taskbar and desktop will return.<\/p>\n The only remaining question: why does this work?<\/p>\n Note: kudos to TechSmith Snagit<\/a> which was able to capture the screens successfully; the first two capture utilities I tried could not do so. I had to set DirectX as the input type and use a timed capture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Age of Empires 2 is one of my favourite games, especially multi-player. Age of Empires 3 was better in some ways, worse in others; somehow it is not as much fun. One of the problems with version three is that the scenarios are more constrained; and the introduction of home cities and colonies changes the … Continue reading Fixing Age of Empires 2 graphics in Windows 7<\/span> <\/a><\/p>\n
2. Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete and click Start Task Manager
3. Click the Processes tab, find explorer.exe, select and click End Process
4. Switch back to Age of Empires 2 with Alt-Tab<\/p>\n