Guild Wars Multiple Instance Creator!

[ComtriS]

Okay, so much like many of you, I have more than one GW account. Also, I want to be able to run these at the same time ON THE SAME COMPUTER
so I can trade inventory and farm with one character while the other character is selling stuff, or whatever. So I decided to create an easy-to-use
batch file to do this. Fortunately for you, I also decided to post it here for everyone's use

With this program, you can run up to 10 instances of GW on your computer! (You could run an infinite amount with simple modification)

So, some things you need to do first to get this to work on your computer:

1) You must be running some form of Windows (I'm not sure if this will work on older Windows, like '95 or older)

2) You must also make a copy of your GW directory for EACH instance of GW you wish to run

3) Download Handle v3.4
http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/Handle.zip
If the above link is dead, search Google for "Handle - a command-line handle viewer By Mark Russinovich"

4) Download Stream Editor v3.59 (sed or ssed)
http://sed.sourceforge.net/grabbag/ssed/sed-3.59.zip
If the above link is dead, search Google for "ssed" or "sed", you should be able to find it easily.

5) Unzip both of these files.

6) Rename the "sed-3.59" file to "ssed" (or rename it to "ssed.exe" if you have hide file extensions turned off)

7) Move both executables (you don't need the text files that come with the zips) into your system directory (usually "C:\Windows\System32\")

8) Download my batch file from here: http://multigw.vndv.com/

9) Open the batch file in any text editor (like notepad)

10) Change the GWPATHs in this file to wherever you have your copies of GW

11) Double click the batch file to run all the instances.

12) Enjoy maximum multi-GW gaming satisfaction!

I'm pretty sure this shouldn't cause any legal issue with ANet. You can only do this if you own more than one license of GW. The only difference is you're using ONE computer instead of TWO or more.

Also, I should mention, I did this with my top-of-the-line computer, so your mileage may vary.

If anybody has any trouble with this (you shouldn't -- I made it very idiot proof), let me know.

Otherwise, good luck and have fun!

Below are some screenshots (I only have 2 accounts, so I can only show you the opening screen with more than 2). Also, I have 2 dual screen (widescreen) monitors, so the resolution on these are really high.

[Qanar]

More work, but this does not require putting exe's and batch files in your system32 folder:

http://qanar.ulyssis.be/vm.php

[ComtriS]

Originally Posted by Qanar

More work, but this does not require putting exe's and batch files in your system32 folder:

http://qanar.ulyssis.be/vm.php

Yea, I tried that... it was awful. And there's the 30-day limit on it too.

If people don't like putting files in their system32 folder, they can just change PATH in their environment variables. I didn't want to go into that, so I figured putting a couple files in your system32 folder was no big deal.

[Tom Nook]

Nice work.
That's what I call multi-tasking.

[ComtriS]

Originally Posted by Tom Nook

Nice work.
That's what I call multi-tasking.

Thanks!

Also, I forgot to mention: After you do the initial setup, when you want to run Multi-GW in the future, you simply need to run the batch file -- that's it!

[teina]

The problem with the VMWare solution is that you're running an entire virtual machine under GW, which consumes more resources, plus you're constrained to VMWare's graphics emulation, which isn't too great last time I tried it. On the plus side, it's a virtual machine, so you're not mucking with the process handles and registry, and as far as the software is concerned, it's running on two machines.

To the OP, I didn't see a change to the registry. Have you tested your script with an update? I seem to recall updates go into the directory stored in the registry, so if I'm reading your .bat file right, all updates will just go to your first install location.

More generally, as far as I know, Anet has never commented on the legality of using this method to run multiple instances, even though variations of it has been circulating around for a long time. Therefore I'm going to leave this open for now until I hear otherwise. I will remove it if there is any indication that Anet disapproves of this.

-T

[ComtriS]

Originally Posted by teina

The problem with the VMWare solution is that you're running an entire virtual machine under GW, which consumes more resources, plus you're constrained to VMWare's graphics emulation, which isn't too great last time I tried it. On the plus side, it's a virtual machine, so you're not mucking with the process handles and registry, and as far as the software is concerned, it's running on two machines.

To the OP, I didn't see a change to the registry. Have you tested your script with an update? I seem to recall updates go into the directory stored in the registry, so if I'm reading your .bat file right, all updates will just go to your first install location.

More generally, as far as I know, Anet has never commented on the legality of using this method to run multiple instances, even though variations of it has been circulating around for a long time. Therefore I'm going to leave this open for now until I hear otherwise. I will remove it if there is any indication that Anet disapproves of this.

-T

Sounds good. As far as the updates go... when I first looked at my registry entry, it said that Guild Wars was installed in a directory that didn't exist. And I've been getting the updates just fine, so I'm not sure it matters.

If somebody finds that it does matter, then I'll change the batch file to automate the registry changes.

[ComtriS]

Any more feedback on this? Does it work for you? Do you like it, hate it? Want to see any changes made?

[teina]

Please don't bump threads, it's against our Site Rules.

I do have one suggestion though, instead of spawning off N copies at once, change it so it'll automatically start the next instance. That way you can just have one shortcut to to this batch file, then every click would "remember" what instance of GW it's on, and start the next one incrementally. Since users may not want to start multiple instances initially, but may want to start up and kill off a GW instance to trade with his alternate accounts.

I've been meaning to do that with my own batch file, but my batch-fu is rusty. So right now I just have 3 shortcuts instead.

-T

[ComtriS]

Originally Posted by teina

Please don't bump threads, it's against our Site Rules.

I do have one suggestion though, instead of spawning off N copies at once, change it so it'll automatically start the next instance. That way you can just have one shortcut to to this batch file, then every click would "remember" what instance of GW it's on, and start the next one incrementally. Since users may not want to start multiple instances initially, but may want to start up and kill off a GW instance to trade with his alternate accounts.

I've been meaning to do that with my own batch file, but my batch-fu is rusty. So right now I just have 3 shortcuts instead.

-T

Well, I contest that it wasn't really a bump. I posed some questions which weren't obviously inferred by my original post. After all, it got you to respond with some feedback.

And, that's a good idea you have there. I'll work on that.

About the batch file thing... it would have been much easier to code this in Java or C++, but I've been using those too much lately. Batch files are fun, simple, and easily checkable for maliciousness.

Oh, and there's no way for a batch file to "remember" anything since its last spawn (unless you use temporary files or change the environment variables -- yuck!). The better way to handle that is simply by doing a process lookup, to see how many instances of GW are already running and where their locations are. The only issue with this is which instance to open next? I don't really want to make it ask the user "Hey! Which instance of GW do you want now?" I would rather make it a one-click deal. Let me know what your thoughts are.