Well, that Collectors Edition isn't available anymore here, and I agree, a clean and fully patch single download, single install would be excellent. Would certainly buy! Can perhaps someone from gog say whether this is possible?

Anything's possible. This seems improbable though, being Microsoft....
I'd certainly love getting my hands on AoE 1 though, and I'd probably swing the boat out for AoE2 if they ever show their faces here.

I doubt it'll ever happen (Microsoft), but I want this pretty badly too. Age of Empires is one of my favorite games of all time.

Well Games on Demand hit the PC recently...I'd think even if Microsoft opened up the back catalogue, they'd do it on their service instead of GOG. But maybe not, who knows.
Use the wishlist.

Never tried AOE yet, heard 2+3 were botched sequels but I want to hear others on this. Since someone is asking for AOE2 I might look for it in a few months and get it, though a GOG version would be extra incentive to buy for me.

Yeah, AoE2 was kinda cartoony in the "historical" department, an area the 1st game excelled in. It's still playable though, just don't expect more than "Dear Diary, today we saw some strange peoples, riding horses!!"

Damn. Looks like I better swoop a copy for myself too before it disappears on shelves here.

Really? I don't quite remember AOE2 being that way, but it could be the memory loss worm eating away inside my cranium. I always thought AOE2 was AOE1 with more punch, and that AOE3 was the one that messed everything up

Indeed, according to wikipedia, the almighty knowledge source (sarcasm) AOE3 was the one that bit the bullet in development, AOE2 was good enough to keep up to the first. Well I gotta find a demo somewhere when I get the time and try it but I'm having so much fun with UFO: Aftershock I can't be drawn away from it..................

I played these games to death until I reached the breaking point. What realy drove me mad was the overuse of catapults and priest, lacks of different sprites for all the nations and the paper/scissor/stone combat system, and come on... antiquity and medieval games focused on ranged combat ?!

AoE1 and 2 are the best strategy games I've ever played... Well, I'm still playing with as much enthusiasm as back then today! I spent my life in the supplied Map editor and the community content, mods, addons makes it even better.
It's awesome... :P
It should work on Vista and 7 aswell, only annoyance is the infamous "color bleeding".
But there's an easy way to fix it by killing the explorer(temporarely)!
You can write a small batch file with this content:
taskkill /F /IM Explorer.exe
age2_x1.exe
Start explorer.exe
and drop it in the same directory as the game executable. It basically kills the window manager, starts the game and afterwards restores it. You may have to ALT+TAB if the phenomen crawls back into your game.
May prove helpful to some.
EDIT: Attached before/after pics to show the effect