Age of Empires II Problems

I would like to be able to play Age of Empires II (age of kings and conquerors expansion) on my computer (macbook pro) which is running windows 7 through parallels. I am 99% sure this is a windows 7 problem, and not a parallels problem.

So I installed AoK and AoC and they load fine, but when I try to play a game the color is off and there is a black box around the cursor, colored boxes around the scores, and all the movements of the mouse and the characters are really jerky (imagine the worst lag when playing online and that's what it is all the time). I found a fix for the colors, but the rest of the problems are still there... anybody know how to fix this?

Thanks,
Awlego

I would like to... but I tried and it didn't work. Because I'm running it on a mac, getting the xp mode to work has been a pain. I'm continuing to work on that, but if there was another solution that would be great.

https://www.sevenforums.com/gaming/90...zes-worse.html

The lag issues are probably an issue with cpu virtualisation, or if its anything like iv'e seen with starcraft in Vbox, its caused by spanning the virtual window larger than the output mode used in age of empires.

I found limiting the window size of the virtual machine to the same size as the resolution of the game removed the jitteryness and cursor lag.

Running in compatibility is built into Windows 7 are you NOT dual booting, MAC OS and Windows 7??

I am running Windows 7 as a virtual machine through Parallels if that is what you mean by dual booting. I've tried running Age in compatibility mode, I've tried downloading the XP Mode for Windows 7, but because I'm already in a virtual machine it doesn't like creating another one... same issue if I try to make a XP Mode through VMware. That's why I'm trying to see if anything else fixes it :P

No I haven't tried boot camp... I would try it but I've already set up parallels and it's not worth it to me to download, install, and create another virtual machine just to play one game :P

If there is any other fixes that's great, if not I've spent way too much time trying to get it to work... so I'm about ready just to give up.

Going to this thread Windows 7/Vista Color Fix and following the advice at the very bottom of the registry worked for me. Involves no programs, no closing explorer and restarting explorer. Adding this to your registry and you can play with no color issues and you can alt tab out of the game during play and back in again with no issues. At least no issues I for me so far.