Installing World of Warcraft and Burning Crusade on Windows XP 64-Bit.
(May apply to Windows Vista also as I hear of others experiencing similar problems to I.)
Written for European users but may be useful elsewhere.
You will benefit and save time by reading my whole
drawn out saga of problems and solutions you will recognize.
However if like me you are impatient, and just want quick fixes which is
understandable after your laborious install, you could just skip to the bottom
recommendations for quick fixes.
World Of Warcraft and Upgrade patches.
After personally getting no support from the game authors themselves (despite two support requests filed), very little constructive information (if any at all on Burning Crusade) I thought I would write a little document to try to help those people like myself frustrated at the SLOW and Awful Install methods used by this product to hopefully get this working for you as I did….EVENTUALLY.
Firstly if you have not yet installed be prepared for the longest software installation of your life, at best you could probably expect to play your new game in about eight hours.
World Of Warcraft Install from the disk goes pretty much as you would expect initially, however you will no doubt receive the odd error during it laborious update process.
One of the first wastes of time you will encounter will be the flash screen stating “Waiting for all programs to close” or words to that effect. (I am doing this from memory and will correct to the exact fraise to help searches when I can).
So you sit, Waiting as no error has flagged and all looks well….NOPE!
It is actually sat there waiting for LAUNCHER.EXE to close before continuing, but for some unfathomable reason, no one cares that you wait for what could be an hour before you think something may be wrong, so you restart, go through the laborious project again thinking maybe you did something wrong, only to find yourself an hour later at the same point.
The fact is the application for some reason cannot close
launcher under XP64 bit.
All you need to do to continue is enter task manager (on XP through [CTRL]+[ALT]&[DELETE])
and end the task LAUNCHER.EXE).
The program will now start you off on the slow task of downloading the Updates, first one goes smoothly, doesn’t take too long, but then there is a whole load of further updates currently we are up to update 3.08 at this moment in time downloading these update using their Torrent type software takes about 6 to 9 hours, and that’s nothing to do with your Broadband bandwidth or the size of the programs, they aren’t so big, its just their TORRENT TYPE software blows big chunks, its download rate is horrendous, and when you seek the reasons for this out, others will advise you to manually download the update from FTP and mirror sites, and drop them in your WOW install folder “normally” found in C:\PROGRAM FILES\World Of Warcraft.
The default directory for XP 64Bit User is C:\PROGRAM FILES (x86)\World Of Warcraft.
You will find on this site the updates required for UK Europe users (the GBen files), as there are so many different types and they don’t work if you are installing the wrong version.
Also bear in mind if you have installed the downloadable trial version of this software the odds are that you have downloaded the US version, and so your characters are lost and your account activation code won’t work, so you have to install from scratch again.
So, eight hours later occasionally returning to the install you finally launch the application and guess what, it wants to install again…you start doubting your sanity, “I’m sure I just did this bit”…its not you its people who packaged this application they are the insane ones, yep the launcher keeps wanting to update the same thing over and over again.
Delete the icon on your desktop, delete the shortcut in your start menu (they are only shortcuts not programs so you cannot do any harm deleting them you can recreate them by right clicking the mouse over the program itself and clicking create shortcut), go directly to WOW.EXE usually found in your C:\PROGRAM FILES (x86)\World Of Warcraft folder run from there and while you’re their drag a new shortcut to it from your desktop.
Always run your own shortcut or the WOW.EXE itself.
· End task LAUNCHER.EXE
· Run WOW.EXE direct from the program not any shortcuts created by the installer.
Burning Crusade Installation For Windows XP64Bit. (And possibly Vista)
You put the disk in, wait for the installer to fire up, you’ve forgotten all the problems you had with WOW install in the first place, confident that install will go ahead no problem at all, sure enough instantly it fires up the familiar splash screen but this time it says “PLAY BURNING CRUSADE”…well that was painless, seconds later you are faced with the familiar account log on screen, eagerly you type your username and password and without problem your logged in…hurrah, you rush off to the nearest portal to take you into Silvermoon City to explore new wondrous items and people, maybe even create yourself the illustrious Blood Elf character you always wanted… you click on the portal, the cog turns golden, the power bar goes up….and then you read the first exciting piece of news “You Must Have Burning Crusade Installed to Access This Area”…I Just did install it, didn’t I ?, but wait, no It didn’t ask me for my license key, you log out open and close your CD drive again it flashes teasingly “PLAY BURNING CRUSADE”…but you haven’t installed have you ?..
How do I type “Installed but not installed” into Google to get the desired results from this problem..
Well here blizzard did have the answer or part of according to them in not so many words “YOU part installed and messed up” try re-installing…. I CAN’T REINSTALL ITS NOT INSTALLED IN THE FIRST PLACE !!!
Well with a little searching of forums etc I found someone suggesting looking into your installation folder for WOW (see above) where you will find a folder called DATA and a file called EXPANSION.MPQ
Here is your messed up installation you are told to delete the file (DON’T) the chap is half right and its probably correct for XP standard users, but not for us 64Bit users. Rename it to EXPANSION.XXX for now.
As sure enough removing this file causes the disk to actually really want to install Burning Crusade, but there again things go wrong and another error was displayed. I can’t remember exactly which one but you can tell me when you hit it and I will amend this text.
Whatever that error is the fix is to take your BC disk out of the drive and store it where the sun don’t shine “It’s Useless”, launch WOW.EXE again and go to your log on screen, instead of logging in, click Manage account in the bottom left, and select add expansion to your account download their version from the net (retail disk one), which surprisingly doesn’t take the usual eight hours but about one.
We’re almost there, but you know Blizzard are going to
throw a spanner in the works before you get to play the game that they have
taken the money from you for “Support” from… The “Support” I am now giving you
BE_COPPERPLANET02.BLP
is missing from the source folder try repairing the files, (Don’t bother it
wont find any errors or fix anything), heres where the backup of
EXPANSION.MPQ will save you reinstalling the whole god damn game again and I
have just saved you about 10 hours of your life. Reneame your new EXPANSION.MPQ
to EXPANSION.YYY and your EXPANSION.XXX to EXPANSION.MPQ
Nearly there…again !!!!
Yep you will be locked in the old, installing upgrade, restarting, installing upgrade routine again.
When you get to this point simply remember the old trick of launching from the WOW.EXE and not their shortcuts (or your shortcut which seems to now have changed to theirs).
This document may well have just saved you over 10 hours of faffing around to
get this game working as it shoud have.
You have paid Blizzard for the support of this product by buying the game, however the support you received as from me, so please please please make a donation even if its only £1.00 to help pay for keeping this webpage on the internet and helping others. You can paypal paypal@videopac.org any donations or with no cost to you you may click on the links provided around the site and even better take up one of the offers available.
DOWNLOADS (UK User on European Servers) you will need all these files.
WoW-2.4.2-enGB-patch.rar (please donate for the time this saves you to videopac@paypal.com)
WoW-2.4.2.8278-to-2.4.3.8606-enGB-patch.rar (please donate for the time this saves you to videopac@paypal.com)
WoW-3.0.8.9464-to-3.0.8.9506-enGB-patch.rar (please donate for the time this saves you to videopac@paypal.com)
WoW-3.0.2.9056-to-3.0.3.9183-enGB-patch.rar (please donate for the time this saves you to videopac@paypal.com)
WoW-3.0.3.9183-to-3.0.8.9464-enGB-patch.rar (please donate for the time this saves you to videopac@paypal.com)
once downloaded extract the the .exe files from each using winrar from www.winrar.com (free) into your installation folder (next to WOW.exe)
You can support this site by clicking the link below and seing if you can save any money on your household bills with USWITCH, please at least try...you never know you could save £100s and make me a few quid in return.
DISCLAIMER
I am not an employee of Blizzard, It’s not my job to help anyone any of the
fixes listed above worked for me, they may not work for you, you should back up
any files or folder you intend to change at your own risk.
COPYRIGHT ©2008 Richard Page.
All the text written in this document is for personal use you may print it, pass it onto your friends, but it may not be altered, added to or used on any other website.