To play Age of Empire 2 on Windows 7 and up, without nasty graphic (we are talking about the non HD version…), you can use this little fix. Have fun playing

@echo off
taskkill /IM explorer.exe /F
C:
cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Age of Empires II\age2_x1\"
start age2_x1.exe
pause
start explorer.exe