Age of Empires No CD
From Tim's Wiki
To remove the CD requirement for Age of Empires and Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome:
- Open the program binary (EMPIRES.EXE or EMPIRESX.EXE) in a hex editor
- Search for the binary sequence 05 00 8B F0 85 F6 75 0B
- Replace with 05 00 8B F0 85 F6 90 90
- Done!