StarCraft, Age of Empires and Diablo are one of the most popular and evergreen games which were launched before 2000. These games have got a huge fan following and theor popularity is still growing among game lovers. Age of Empires is a history-based real-time strategy PC game while StarCraft is a military science fiction real-time strategy video game and Diablo is a dark fantasy-themed action role-playing game. Keeping the popularity of these games, the game developers released the sequel versions such as : StarCraft : nsurrection, StarCraft : Retribution, StarCraft: Brood War, Diablo II, Diablo III, Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome, Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, Age of Empires II: The Conquerors, Age of Empires III, Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs, and Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties.

Since the games were released in late nineties, the game was aimed for Windows 98, 2000 and XP users. But if you try to play these games on today’s OS versions such as Vista and Windows 7, they will not run properly. The problems that users face are, but not limited to, crappy, messed-up and bright turquoise color in the menu system, glitched graphics, incorrect rendering of the game etc. Even user are facing game display resolution issues in Windows XP systems.

We can follow few workarounds to get rid of color issues and play StarCraft, Diablo or Age of Empires properly in Windows 7 or Vista. Remember that the result will vary depending on computer configuration, used graphics accelerator processing unit (GPU) etc. However, you may follow the below workarounds to fix color display issues in Windows 7 and Vista.

Workaround 1 : Compatibility Settings

1. Right click on Age of Empires, Diablo or StarCraft icon >> click Properties
2. Select Compatibility tab and under Settings tab tick all check boxes against the following options

Run in 256 color
Run in 640×480 screen resolution
Disable visual themes
Disable desktop composition
Disable display scaling on high DPI settings

3. Optionally you can set the “Compatibility Mode” to “Windows XP SP3″ and check the Run as Administrator option (Select each and every “Compatibility Mode” options until you find the best one)
4. Click OK to save the settings and exit the properties window.
5. Right click on desktop and navigate to Screen Resolution (in Windows 7) OR Personalize (in Windows Vista) >> leave the window opens
6. Double click on any game icon and it will run properly

Workaround 2 : Running in 16-bit Colors

1. Right Click on Desktop >> Screen Resolution >> Display Settings (in Windows 7) OR right click on Desktop >> Personalize >> Display Settings (in Windows Vista)
2. Choose Advanced Settings tab >> click Monitor tab
3. Select High Color (16-bit) from the drop down list
4. Hit Apply button and confirm the display settings prompt window.

Note that Windows Aero transparency effect will be disabled under this situation.

Workaround 3 : Using StarCraft Fix (For StarCraft game only)

1. Download StarCraft Fix which is a fix to all display related problems while playing StarCraft game
2. Copy the RAR file to the game folder and extract it there
3. Double click on StarCraftFix.exe and click on the middle button which says Play Game to play the game without any problems
4. You are done.

Now the color display problems in Vista or Windows 7 should have been fixed and you can enjoy playing the games. [via]