no way whatsoever?
dam, i was gonna get that

Would it be possible to produce a community patch that would fix the compatibility issue? If anyone knows how to modify the exe, I assume it should be possible. Members of AoKH and AoW2H have produced unofficial patches for their respective games that, among other things, fix bugs by modifying the exe. I hope the same could be accomplished for Empire Earth.

sadly, as far as I'm capable of, compatibility modes and admin rights don't fix the issue. EmperorJustinian's way is the only possibility we can see ATM, but I don't know if the community has a member who is capable of that.

Right now, what I did was to downgrade my gaming desktop to win7, while retaining win8 in my laptop.

Oh, of course, you can do dual booting for a single computer, but then, it'll be very annoying to boot say, xp or win7 for EE use, and reboot to win8 for the others.

EmperorJustinian's way is the only possibility we can see ATM, but I don't know if the community has a member who is capable of that.

Based on this thread, it seems Darkonen may be able to help:
http://ee.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=3,38118,,10

[This message has been edited by EmperorJustinian (edited 10-06-2012 @ 07:25 AM).]

a, yes. almost forgot about Darkonen. He is doing mods for AOC, but I guess he is more than capable of doing an .exe fix. Hope he responds here.

Hello, here I am!

I've been reading on the internet about this and there are many more games that do not work on windows 8 beta because it is a moment that I know of so do not worry, the Age of Empires 2 does not work as I read and is Microsoft itself.

So I guess later when the final version fix all this.

Anyway had better play with windows 7 and when removing the final version of Windows 8 does not operate the EE.exe begin to see how to how to fix it.

Because in the future I want to play and I'm creating mod is compatible on Windows 8 and Linux.

I hope you understand my opinion but I see now need a patch to a beta until it ended because I imagine that will change many things besides that I have little time with my job and girlfriend and in what time I have left to do the AoW mod.

[This message has been edited by Darkonen (edited 10-07-2012 @ 06:16 PM).]

a, yes. no worries. Actually, there are already selling windows 8 here, so I don't know if it is still beta. But you are correct. Let's wait until Windows 8 is stable enough. I really wished you'll have your modifications too in EE vanilla, Darkonen. It will be most welcome for many who doesn't own AoC.

What about 2? I played the first one loads, still play Children of the Nile, which uses the graphical engine.

Guys, i'm bringing some good news...
Actually i created my account at this forums just to tell u that there is a way to fix this on windows 8:
you need to edit a registry value (winkey+r, type 'regedit' and press enter):
change:
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SSSI\Empire Earth\Wait for VSync"
From 1 to 0.
Also, change
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SSSI\Empire Earth\Rasterizer Name"
to:
"Direct3D Hardware TnL" - copy the exact text wihout the "

that's it, it will work!

[This message has been edited by e10hs (edited 12-14-2012 @ 04:23 PM).]

Have a video or some type of slideshow or something showing us this? not that I don't believe you, and I couldn't test it since I don't have a Windows 8 either way but, just for future reference you know?

BOOST15673 - Per your request, i recorded the instructions and proof and uploaded to youtube:
(choose HD in order to see the text in the screen)
regedit instructions: http://youtu.be/GQxSDt3SpQU
proof of gameplay: http://youtu.be/XGclDfgDYvU
(low frame rate is caused by recording software)

Alright then awesome find, this must DEFINITELY become a sticky this topic, well in my opinion at least.
ATTENTION: shieldwolf23

whooohooo! thanks e10hs!

Hey e10hs, your trick works well if you wanna play single player. Do you have any idea how to make it so it doesnt freeze while playing multiplayer? i did what you said but it only works for single player/

I have Windows 8 and downloaded EE (from GOG) and had the same problem with it freezing. I made the changes as described above, but changing Rasterizer Name from "Direct 3D" to "Direct3D Hardware TnL" always reverts back to "Direct 3D" and continues to freeze. Anything I can do to make this a permanent change?

hey im running windows 8 pro and am trying to play EE and even with those two changes you suggested e10hs it still crashes on the start up screen any advice??

Sorry if this has been posted already.

I found a solution on a Microsoft community help page.

At this point you should have Empire Earth 2 installed.

1) open notepad

2) Copy and Paste into note pad the following, as is:

taskkill /F /IM explorer.exe
EE2.exe
Start explorer.exe

2A) Please note if you would like to do the same for the expansion just change the EE2.exe to EE2x.exe. Just copy the text below.

taskkill /F /IM explorer.exe
EE2x.exe
Start explorer.exe

3) Click save as,(save it on your desktop so you can find it easier), name it:

EE2.bat

3A) If you are doing this for the expansion just save as.

EE2x.bat

4) Go to where Empire Earth 2 is saved. For example, Computer/C:/all programs/sierra/empire earth2.

Drag and drop the file that you just created into that folder.

5) Right click the EE2.bat file and send to desktop. This will create a shortcut. You can then modify the icon if you would like. The .ico files are already in your EE2 directory just choose to change icon and navigate to the EE2 directory.

6) Just to be safe right click and run the new shortcut as administrator. At many points during this process you maybe prompted to run as admin, just go ahead and accept it.

The game should launch without any issues. It will resume explorer.exe when you exit the game. I'm using Windows 8 and this works for me. I also have EE1 running without issues. For EE1 I just run the game by setting compatibility mode to XP and running as administrator. No issues.

I am not the creator of this solution it was found here. I paraphrased the guide a bit. If anyone has questions feel free to ask.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-gaming/my-empire-earth-2-is-not-compatible-with-windows-8/a549dbed-cb21-4432-9a22-74a9d18bbc91

[This message has been edited by Kaspernikus (edited 01-27-2013 @ 08:23 PM).]

Sorry to disappoint, but it appears that this issue is not yet addressed. Compatibility settings doesn't address it, as well as the registry edits too.

Dual booting may do it, but I'm not too keen on getting my hopes up.

I have been following this thread since it started because I too would like to play EE2 again but none of these solutions have fixed the problem. I am still unable to launch the game. I have Windows 8 64bit so that may be the problem. If anyone has a way to get around this please tell me.

Hello all, I'm new here but hopefully my intro will be very welcome...I have run into the Windows 8 64bit install issue with a number of games and actually recall the same issues at times installing older games in Win7 64. Anyway, I have found that 9 out of ten times if you "Run as administrator" the setup.exe it will work. I followed this with EE AOC and am running (so far!) perfectly with no additional patches, hacks, etc...and this is the original not the GOG version. Still installing EE2 so can't verify that for sure yet but this should get yas well on your way !

It appears that some of us gets the problem fixed, and some, don't. In my case, I ended up doing dual boots in my i7, and using WindowsXP in my 6 year old laptop. I really hope that we can find a more universal solution.

This is strange: I've bought my PC with Windows 8 already installed.
I've installed EE and AOC and it run without problems, without compatibility settings nor changes with regedit.

Maybe, it's because upgrading from a previous Windows doesn't work well as formatting and installing Windows 8 from scratch...

EDIT: Ok, it seems that EE has this problem, but AOC doesn't!
Running EE doesn't work, while AOC it's ok.
If you want to solve this problem, just upgrade to AOC!

[This message has been edited by Forlins (edited 02-23-2013 @ 04:13 AM).]

Curiouser and curiouser...While EE runs fine EE2 does not (for me, that is). One would think the newer game would be more likely to run. Doesn't "crash" in the typical sense, it just stops at the black screen, but has the descency to minimize itself so as not to disrupt my pc, lol!

I also bought my PC with Windows 8 64bit. But i have tried to run as an administrator but it still doesn't work. I also hope we are able to find a more universal solution. I will continue to try to get it to work but I'm not very tech savvy.

Strange. It seems that everyone has different symptoms.

For me, EE works perfectly without any compatibility settings, but when trying to load EE-AoC, nothing happens. Two instances of EE-AOC.exe appear in Task Manager, only to disappear a few seconds later. I have tested EE-AoC with compatibility modes, administrator privileges, 16-bit colour mode and Safe Mode, but to no avail.

@e10hs

Guys, i'm bringing some good news...
Actually i created my account at this forums just to tell u that there is a way to fix this on windows 8:
you need to edit a registry value (winkey+r, type 'regedit' and press enter):
change:
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SSSI\Empire Earth\Wait for VSync"
From 1 to 0.
Also, change
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SSSI\Empire Earth\Rasterizer Name"
to:
"Direct3D Hardware TnL" - copy the exact text wihout the "

that's it, it will work!

Since it is EE-AoC that does not work for me, the applicable registry path for me is "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mad Doc Software\EE-AOC". However, there are only five registry keys present there:
=> (Default)
=> Installed From Directory
=> Installed From Volume
=> Take JPG Screenshots
=> UseCandidateWindow
Everything else is missing, including the "Game Options" folder that is normally present.

@stscream

I have found that 9 out of ten times if you "Run as administrator" the setup.exe it will work. I followed this with EE AOC and am running (so far!) perfectly with no additional patches, hacks, etc...and this is the original not the GOG version.

I am fairly sure that I ran the setup.exe with administrator privileges. I don't even think it runs without them.

@Forlins

Ok, it seems that EE has this problem, but AOC doesn't!
Running EE doesn't work, while AOC it's ok.
If you want to solve this problem, just upgrade to AOC!

I have the opposite problem: EE works fine but EE-AoC does not.

I am using a new ultrabook with Windows 8 (64-bit) preinstalled, and I am not using the GOG version.

[This message has been edited by EmperorJustinian (edited 02-25-2013 @ 00:37 AM).]