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pogoman979

bought normal A2 and steam A2, can't play at the same time

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ok this is pretty annoying. as many folks here know multiplayer missions always have more problems than single player missions, and since you can run 2 instances of A2 at the same time i figured why not join the same server with both of these 2 instances. of course this gave me the error cd key in use which is fair enough.

so i bought and downloaded the steam version, and ran the steam game and the retail at the same time and the stupid thing just says cd key in use again, even though i have two copies of the game now and presumably steam has a different cd key...

so wth?

hmm i just realised, would the game be booting me cause it thinks the two users joining have the same ip address or something like that? i dont have another computer capable of running A2 so i cant test...

Edited by pogoman979

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Nope, wouldn't be that. When it looks for your Key it looks in your registry. It finds the first key there and uses that. Therefor if you load up another version of Arma 2 (Steam) it still looks in the registry and see's the first key (DvD version) first.

An alternate method you could use (bare in mind it may not work too well and uses a lot of resources, especially RAM, and requires good Virtual Machine knowledge) is to run Arma 2 on your com like normal and run a Virtual machine (virtual PC/VMWare) with Steam version of Arma 2 under that.

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i have had three different installs on the sameOS...Steam,DE,505, and Steam wins, takes the key and says ME ME ME. ( f-u steam, and your fking 4gb redownload BS). Yeah dont mix copys with Steam.

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does it store the key in current user or or local machine?

you might be able to do it if you run install the 2nd copy and run it under a different user ..

it probably stores the key under local mchine, but if its under current user then you could do it.

another possibility is running Arma from a BAT file that enters the key into the registry right before launching. Depending on how Arma2 works, if it just fetches the key at startup then once the copy of Arma2 is loaded you can change the key and load up the 2nd copy without issues by changing the reg key.

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To get around this, simply launch the steam version first.

Then import the reg key containing your other key and run the other version. The key is checked and stored in memory at game start (during or close to when you see the checkmarks)

Details:

What you should do when you get and install any BIS game is extract the registry of the game, under \HKEYLOCALMACHINE\Software\Bohemia Interactive Studio\Arma 2\

If you have x64 windows, its \HKEYLOCALMACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Bohemia Interactive Studio\Arma 2\

There are two values in there, KEY which represents your encoded CDKEY and determines your player id, and MAIN which should point to your game install directory.

So for your dilemma, you need to close steam, install the dvd version, and immediately extract the registry (right click on Arma 2 folder in regedit and choose export) when its done and save it as non-steam_arma2.reg. Then run steam and you'll see that it all gets overwritten... (press f5 to refresh regedit)

So make a batch file that launches your DVD version. In your DVD version's arma directory: Copy the reg file that you made before to the directory. Make a new text file called arma2.txt. Rename it to arma2.bat. Right click, edit and put this in it:

regedit /s non-steam_arma2.reg

arma2.exe -nosplash %1

Now make a shortcut to this batchfile on your desktop and you can use it like you normally would. If you needed to load a mod, thats why the %1 is in there, you can call the batch file with arma2.bat -mod=@HappyFunMod -window or any other commands you need.

To verify it works, the two different games should have different player id's in the profile screen.

If you'd like to have different profiles for each instance, you can also use the -profile switch.

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thanks alot guys, and thanks for the guide oktane! i'll give it a shot :).

EDIT: it worked! thanks again, this'll make my life so muche easier :)

Edited by pogoman979

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