Well, after a while of thinking that the whole thing might just become vaporware, Mektek did release the free Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries game as promised yesterday, in conjunction with Microsoft.
Problem is that within about an hour or two the name-servers for their domain failed and while they came up a few hours ago, the Web-site itself is now looking deceased – which also essentially kills Mektek’s digital download system. If, however, you’ve got about 1.8GB of bandwidth free, you can still get the release and get it to work.
MTX, the digital delivery client, goes off and fetches a torrent. Specifically, it fetches this torrent. Fire up any BitTorrent client and roughly 1.8GB later you’ll have a file called mechwarrior4mercenaries.all.to.51.03.01.0017.mtx.
You can try loading that into the MTX software via the file-menu, but frankly, that doesn’t seem to work at all.
You can grab the MTX installer here (15.54MB). It hasn’t been tampered with, but don’t take my word for that. You should always do a scan for malware if you don’t know who you’re getting a file from. To make life easier you should install and run MTX at least once, just to let it set up a few key registry settings. If the Mektek Web-site is back up by the time you do, then you’ve also saved yourself a few steps.
Instead, rename the file to a zip file (mechwarrior4mercenaries.all.to.51.03.01.0017.zip) and unpack it wherever the heck you want it to go. You’ll need an additional 2GB of space for that.
Then go to the directory you installed to, and create a shortcut to MW4Mercs.exe (in the Base sub-folder). Why a shortcut rather than running it directly? I’ll get back to that in a second.
Run it, let it get to the start screen where you have the option to create a profile. Go click on the [X] in the top right corner to exit the application. It’s now stored the first-run status and created some registry entries. If it hangs during the next step, at least that part is out of the way.
Now run it again. When you click New Profile from the start screen, the application might hang. If it does, then kill the process, edit the shortcut and add /gosnovideo to the shortcut, and launch using that.
See? I told you I’d get to that. Then start the application again, and create your profile. You should be able to exit and run without the option after that, but you know what to do if it hangs the same way again.
And there you go. It’d be very nice to – you know – actually have a manual for the game, but the distribution doesn’t seem to include one. It might be on the Mektek Web-site, but that’s still down and there are some rumors circulating that suggest it may not come back.
Beyond all of this you might have some additional problems that I’m not having with the release. Good luck with those, because my ability to do long-distance tech-support is pretty limited, so I’m not the person to ask.
Should the Mektek Web-site actually come back online, well, hooray. Otherwise, you’ve done by hand what MTX is supposed to do automatically.
Why does it ask for a CD on my system?
You’ve got registry entries from an original Mechwarrior 4 installation (or perhaps from a demo installation of it). Pull open regedit, browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Games and delete the registry keys for Mechwarrior 4/Mechwarrior Mercenaries that you find there. That should sort it out. [addendum: There's a single key down in there called CDPath, and removing that one should be enough to bypass the legacy bit of code]
As always, you should be extremely careful when registry editing so that you don’t break anything that you still want.
| Well, after a while of thinking that the whole thing might just become vaporware, Mektek did release the free Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries game as promised yesterday, in conjunction with Microsoft.
Problem is that within about an hour or two the name-servers for their domain failed and while they came up a few hours ago, the Web-site itself is now looking deceased – which also essentially kills Mektek’s digital download system. If, however, you’ve got about 1.8GB of bandwidth free, you can still get the release and get it to work.
MTX, the digital delivery client, goes off and fetches a torrent. Specifically, it fetches this torrent. Fire up any BitTorrent client and roughly 1.8GB later you’ll have a file called mechwarrior4mercenaries.all.to.51.03.01.0017.mtx.
You can try loading that into the MTX software via the file-menu, but frankly, that doesn’t seem to work at all.
You can grab the MTX installer here (15.54MB). It hasn't been tampered with, but don't take my word for that. You should always do a scan for malware if you don't know who you're getting a file from. To make life easier you should install and run MTX at least once, just to let it set up a few key registry settings. If the Mektek Web-site is back up by the time you do, then you've also saved yourself a few steps.
Instead, rename the file to a zip file (mechwarrior4mercenaries.all.to.51.03.01.0017.zip) and unpack it wherever the heck you want it to go. You’ll need an additional 2GB of space for that.
Then go to the directory you installed to, and create a shortcut to MW4Mercs.exe (in the Base sub-folder). Why a shortcut rather than running it directly? I’ll get back to that in a second.
Run it, let it get to the start screen where you have the option to create a profile. Go click on the [X] in the top right corner to exit the application. It’s now stored the first-run status and created some registry entries. If it hangs during the next step, at least that part is out of the way.
Now run it again. When you click New Profile from the start screen, the application might hang. If it does, then kill the process, edit the shortcut and add /gosnovideo to the shortcut, and launch using that.
See? I told you I’d get to that. Then start the application again, and create your profile. You should be able to exit and run without the option after that, but you know what to do if it hangs the same way again.
And there you go. It’d be very nice to – you know – actually have a manual for the game, but the distribution doesn’t seem to include one. It might be on the Mektek Web-site, but that’s still down and there are some rumors circulating that suggest it may not come back.
Beyond all of this you might have some additional problems that I’m not having with the release. Good luck with those, because my ability to do long-distance tech-support is pretty limited, so I'm not the person to ask.
Should the Mektek Web-site actually come back online, well, hooray. Otherwise, you've done by hand what MTX is supposed to do automatically.
Why does it ask for a CD on my system?
You've got registry entries from an original Mechwarrior 4 installation (or perhaps from a demo installation of it). Pull open regedit, browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Games and delete the registry keys for Mechwarrior 4/Mechwarrior Mercenaries that you find there. That should sort it out. [addendum: There's a single key down in there called CDPath, and removing that one should be enough to bypass the legacy bit of code]
As always, you should be extremely careful when registry editing so that you don't break anything that you still want. | |  | |
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Now run it again. When you click New Profile from the start screen, the application might hang. If it does, then kill the process, edit the shortcut and add /gosnovideo to the shortcut, and launch using that.
Firstly let me say that I *never* post anything on advice sites, but since there are not any comments yet people need to know that this WORKS and is AWESOME. Thank you so much for putting on this helpful guide, good sir, and saving me a week of waiting for MTX to get their gears in line.
[...] Unfortunately, there's been a bit of a hitch. The original site – MekTek – where you could grab the game has folded entirely, presumably under the pressure. In any case, they apparently used a digital delivery system which depended on a torrent, and some helpful online types have found a way for gamers to get their free legal game, requiring just a torrent client and the ability to extract .zip files. (After renaming it, anyway – see full instructions at the source.) [...]
[...] und nutzen können. Funktioniert das nicht, müsst ihr aufs BitTorrent-Netzwerk zurückgreifen und dieser Anleitung folgen. Geschrieben in Allgemein, Taktik-Shooter « Ubisoft – Kopierschutz soll noch [...]
[...] [...]
[...] and damage control MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries launched, breaks a heap of stuff, but… …here is a hacky workaround (thanks, [...]
[...] you are still having issues with MekTek, you can use Plan B: Dwell On It has a hadny link & guide to grabbing and installing the game. Then, you just have to let MekTek's MTX launcher do it's deal [...]
Q: Why am I getting an “Insert MW:4 disk 2 error”
A: You do not have the free version yet the current version is .00018, the free release will be .00019. Until you get version 19 or above, the CD copy protection is still active, and you can not play without a working MW:4 disk 2
ok.. now its showing theres a update to .00020 problem is that you have to do it one at a time..
Q: Why am I getting an “Insert MW:4 disk 2 error”
Because you need to delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\MechWarrior Mercenaries\CDPath from the Windows registry. Apparently MTX installs this key if you let it install the game rather than doing it yourself manually. One of the later patches takes that registry key back out – or you can do it by hand.
It all worked, ‘cept Norton identified MW4Mercs.exe as a virus.
Hiya – thanks for the help… so far so good… I’ve got in-game but now what!
Since I’m totally new to the franchise where do I find a manual?
Doesn’t seem to be anything included, and even a google search seems fruitless…
The lack of a manual is quite a pest, I must admit (and it looks like Mektek’s nameservers have taken another holiday). I’m not quite sure how much help this might be, being that it is focused on the multiplayer aspect of the game, but you may be able to get something out of it, and it is free: http://www.lulu.com/product/item/mechwarrior-4-mercenaries-comprehensive-strategy-guide/10892056
It might be enough to get you started, fingers crossed.
Thanks for the quick reply – I guess there’s nothing like jumping in the deep end of the pool to learn how to swim. I’ll check out the link, but I guess if better options are discovered they’ll turn up eventually. I’ll keep my eye out.
Since Mektek is down, I assume that would have been the first place to ask these questions… any good alternative fansites you know of? Half of the links from the original microsoft one are dead… or missing.
Anyway thanks again for the quick reply…
According to the Mektek site which has been down, but has come back up again, someone submitted Mercs, and the MTX files to a couple antivirus vendors as malware. That appears to be in the process of getting cleaned up. (To be clear: There appears to be no virus. Just someone who decided to submit it as if there were)
The Mektek folks are having a pretty bad week overall.
Thanks for this! I got my “free” copy on a PC PowerPlay magazine cover. Now I only take issue with their “No catch!” claim on the cover. The installer not working out of the box is a huge catch.