My AOE 2 Conquerors will not start (Windows 7)

Got the same problem on my wife's laptop. The best thing that worked is a hard reboot - when game halts, you just reboot (reset), and then after clean loading of Windows you start only the game, and it works. It worked most of times (like 9 of 10, in the rest of cases it took another reboot), but that's obviously a nightmare :) Apparently I got rid of the problem but still unsure what helped. Here are the tips I used:

1. Video drivers update/downgrade. Check the manufacturer's site of your videocard and look for the different driver versions. Either you should update it, or get an OLDER one, if your current is the latest.
2. Compatibility mode. Right click on the shortcut, go to Properties and then Compatibility. Try WinXP SP3 or something under, and be sure to check "Use 256 colors", "Disable visual themes", "Disable desktop composition" and "Run as administrator" boxes.
3. DirectDrawFix. http://aok.heavengames.com/blacksmith/showfile.php?fileid=11108 - the button for download is right above the first post (found it myself not from the first glance :). Download, run, find the game .exe file (it's like age2_x1.exe usually), and that's it. Actually fixes color palette issue with AoE2, but I guess it helped with black screen halt for the same reason with Direct Draw.