WinXP and 2nd copy of D2x v1.10 on bnet

[Crystalion]

Disclaimer: if you're a game thief I can't imagine what you're doing here--you'll find D2x cracks on other sites that are far less hassle than the information (for legitimate owners) contained herein...

I've had different housemates three times since D2 came out, but my household has always owned at least two copies of D2 (and later LoD). IIRC at one time we owned four copies of D1 (since I own two, plus Hellfire). Unfortunately I've retired some PCs and given my usable "old" PC (running WinME) to my kids so I no longer have two side-by-side PCs on my desk (I haven't even run two monitors off of one PC in a while, sigh).

This means that as soon as v1.10 released I had to run into the kid's room every time I wanted to run two bnet characters at once (shame on blizzard for not making this easier--don't they know how many players, like myself, bought two Everquest accounts just for convenience?). While previously I'd personaly modded my own v1.09b for multiple windows running simultaneously on my desktop (non-bnet) under WinME I've gotten used to using WinXP user switching instead when I took up the v1.10 beta. This isn't as convenient (for example, for testing Ruvanal's sleaze™ B) ), but it means I don't have to fix the code after every patch.

However, this doesn't, by itself, work for running two characters simultaneously on bnet. The issue is that blizzard, quite reasonably, wants to know that you own a set of D2/LoD per connect, but, unreasonably, imho, have not provided a simple mechanism to validate this for you from one PC. If you are diehard enough to have read this far then I'm assuming:

1) you run WinXP and understand user switching for local tcp/ip play
2) you currently own 2 copies of D2 and LoD or will rush out and buy a second set once you realize the convenience
3) you are able to understand uninstalls, installs, moving files around and customizing shortcuts without expecting support from blizzard or myself.

If I'm wrong, then I'm sorry to have wasted your time thus far. Bail now.

To run two characters on bnet on one WinXP PC at once without 3rd programs or hacks you can do the following...

Install D2 & LoD (skip this step if you already have done so). Make a subdir wintin the D2 directory (call it, for example: "firstCDKey"). Move the d2sfx.mpq and also the d2char.mpq files into that subdirectory. Now the time consuming part (which Blizzard could have made vastly easier)... uninstall D2 (this will leave the dir structure intact, along with your character saves). Now install D2 and then install LoD using the *other CD-Key copy* that you own (to the same directory that you just uninstalled it from).

You are now back to "normal" except that your main install is using the new CD-Key and you've also "wasted" 300Meg+ in the subdir I told you to make (as the two huge files you moved there contain your classic and expansion CD-Keys). Because you uninstalled you might have some preference option resetting to do, I'm not sure (it might remember some of it--I'm not sure because I did this painful procedure on my kid's PC--which I've not played much on since--to see if it worked, but I moved the resultant cdkey files to my main PC directly).

At this point, make a new user account on WinXP (if you don't have one already). One this account you need to make a program launch shortcut to D2 with one slight twist: the "starting directory" should point one level down, into the "firstCDKey" subdir. Now you can launch from this shortcut as this user and sign on to bnet using that cdkey, while launching the normal shortcut as another user thus connecting to bnet with your second cdkey.

Naturally if you have two side-by-side computers it is probably more convenient to a single (different) CD-Key install on each one, but I thought this information might help some of you in the same boat as I am, and perhaps encourage some of you to buy another copy (I'm afraid I don't get a cut, so don't blame me for trying to get your money ;) ).

Frankly I think it's a pity Blizzard doesn't charge, say, a dollar a month for bnet access, because then they'd have the money to spend on, and obligation to be accountable for enabling legitimate customers to have the access they paid for, while at the same time cutting way way back on the freebie scammers and environment destroyers. This means, of course, that banning would have shaper teeth, in more ways than one. Just imho, ymmv.