so i installed EE hoping to play it again but I discovered that there is no text in menu is there a fix or patch for it? I already search this forum and I find some topics about this problem but nothing worked I tried to turn off AA in Nvidia control panel but that didn't worked I even tried to launch it in windows 2000, NT, Xp but nothing worked

I have exactly the same problem. I played EE and AoC about a year ago and remember using a fix to get around it (so a solution does exist) but I can't find or remember what it was.

Tried Patching it and installing the NeoEE patch. Used every combination of compatibility options possible, and a complete uninstall/reinstall.

Trying to run it in XP SP2 interestingly gives a Visual C++ runtime library error and fails to load, while running it under 2000 compatability, or just standard Win7 allows the game to load fine, just without any text in the menus.

Seems to be a common problem but without an obvious fix. Anyone know any solutions?

Running Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit SP1
Intel Xeon 2.67 GHz
20 GB RAM
Nvidea GeForce GTX 560 Ti

Exactly the same problem for me too. I bough the game with GOG few months ago and I wanted to play it today for the first time in years.
But as you can see in my attached image, I don't have any text. Nowhere. I turned off AA in Nvidia control panel (it looks to be the good solution... With an AMD GPU!) and I tried to launch it with Windows 95, 98, XP SP2/3 compatibilities. But it doesn't work.

If someone have a solution, please, tell us!

It would appear this bug has been around since the game's release. Found this in the game readme:

"Additionally, if you turned on Full Screen Antialiasing for your GeForce video card (through the Advanced options of the Settings for your Display Properties) this could cause abnormalities with the game, including loss of text on buttons and the mouse cursor leaving trails behind it. You should disable Full Screen Antialiasing for your video card (see the manual or instructions for your video card)."

So turning off AA in Nvidia is what Sierra seemed to think was a solution, however doesn't seem to be anymore.

Out of interest what kind of driver numbers do people have for their Nvidias? Since EE worked fine 18 months ago with the exact same graphics card, I'm wondering if it's an updated driver issue?

I'm running version 353.30 now.

Success! (for me at least).

It seems a common problem that the Nvidia drivers don't update properly, and if you're like me, you just let the automatic update fail and carry on with life (because everything still works).

I can't post links, but having searched "nVidia Graphics Drivers always fail to install", I came across a Tom's Hardware thread with a few fix suggestions. Well having followed the thread I fixed the Nvidia update issue and now the game works perfectly!

Best of luck to anyone else who suffers this problem.