MaxFulvus: Is someone knows if there is the "color glitch" with the American Conquest serie on modern OS ? I have the cd version of AC and I can't play it because the game is a true rainbow on W7. I saw a tip about the fact to "kill" explorer.exe, but I'm afraid to crash my PC !
I think you need to right click the shortcut of the game and go to properties (shortcut Alt-Enter)
In Windows 7:
Go the the "Compatibility" tab, and run it in compatibility mode for XP SP3.
There's a checkbox for disable desktop composition - check that.
There's also a checkbox for disable visual themes - check that, too.
You may also have to check the 'run as admin' box. I'd try it without first, though.
In WIndows 8/8.1:
Hmm...
All those helpful compatibility settings from 7 appear to be gone. Windows 8.1 also appears to disable the 'run in 256 color' mode as well. That leaves...
Virtual Machinery/Clouds:
You may be able to set up an XP Virtual Box or Container/Hypervisor with 3D support. I cannot speak at length about 3D support on clients on ESXi or Xen. vSphere claims that its guests support 3D, but I've not tested it. QubesOS (Xen distribution) disallows support for 3D due to security reasons. I cannot think of any other pre-packaged Xen/KVM/Docker type cloud distributions that support 3D. I am open to suggestions, though.