Current Version (date-time) DirectDrawFix 20130101-154045
Introduction
Windows Vista and Windows 7 break color compatibility with certain applications that depend upon palette-based, 256-color graphics. Due to changes to DirectX and DirectDraw, the colors of these applications and games may appear distorted under these newer operating systems. This issue applies to both The Age of Kings and The Conquerors Expansion.
DirectDrawFix will allow you to resolve this specific issue by applying required compatibility fixes to the registry. Elevation is required for this application to perform its updates. Windows XP and earlier operating systems are already compatible and do not require this update.
System Requirements
Windows Vista or later operating system
Elevated user account privileges
this worked well. great job. made my day and rescued me from using batch files. however i wanna ask something. am i the only one who's having an in game audio trouble on windows 7 ultimate 64 bit? any fixes for it?
scripter64 File Author
Posted on 01/04/12 @ 03:23 PM
Hi Celebi! What kind of trouble are you having with your sound? Volume or audio corruption?
If it's the volume being too low, please make sure the windows-specific speaker volume and game-specific volume settings are high enough:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Adjust-the-sound-level-on-your-computer
If it's audio corruption, I wouldn't know what to do; I only have Windows XP lol. Hopefully, someone else will know how to fix it.
Celebi Megatron
Posted on 01/04/12 @ 04:03 PM
I hear some of the sounds but some of them are not playing. For example if I create a game, I dont hear the general game theme (birds singing etc) As well when I click a unit, command or move I dont hear anything. (F.e I select a Paladin there is no horse sound I move it no running horse sound etc) I hope a Win7 user may help me
Keisari Tapsa
Posted on 01/06/12 @ 10:47 AM
Any changes of this (and perhaps windowed mode) to come to Clone Campaigns also?
scripter64 File Author
Posted on 01/06/12 @ 08:13 PM
It should fix any 256-color, palette-based DirectDraw application for Windows Vista/7. It is not limited to aok/aoc :)
Keisari Tapsa
Posted on 01/26/12 @ 10:42 AM
It seems to work for Clone Campaigns also :)
I'd recommend uploading this into here as well:
http://swgb.heavengames.com/downloads/lister.php?category=utilities
For Star Wars players to know about it.
Now only windowed mode is missing for Clone Campaigns.
What exactly does this program add into registry?
[Edited on 01/26/12 @ 10:45 AM]
scripter64 File Author
Posted on 01/26/12 @ 12:28 PM
Here's how to set the compatibility data in the registry:
The Flags value instructs ddraw.dll to ignore this data for systems before Vista. The ID value is the internal timestamp of the executable file.
To find the timestamp with a hex editor:
- Seek in the file to 0x3C
- Read the 4 byte value here: we'll call it idOffset
- Seek in the file to (idOffset + 0x08)
- Read the 4 byte value here: this is the ID
Posted on 11/28/11 @ 11:10 AM (updated 01/01/13) 
