Thanks JGamePlayer.

no offense, but when someone says this:

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I don't feel like going through that whole process.

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This response really bothers me to no end. The path of resolution (at least one of them) to this problem has been presented to us in a silver platter and you don't "want" to do that? What if Microsoft didnt "feel like helping people out" how would YOU feel about that?

Edited by - Stinger on 05-04-2003 16:05:49

My bad all!!! I totally forgot to put how my friend made a new MP ID for me but still uses his old MP ID. I got the info from this forum also. Just had to piece it together is all. I will paste the walk thru below that I made for my friend. =)

Oh and a quick note to Stinger. Not trying to make fun of yah, but if I click on Hippocool's Profile, his e-mail is listed right there =P But I totally understand your opinion and must agree that while waiting for help sucks, if you want help you must sometime wait for it.

The process is not that hard and you will not lose your MP ID. I will give instructions below. Here is how to make MP IDs using a system that can make them (i.e. a Win XP system or what Microsoft wanted you to buy to fix this issue)

- Use the MP ID utility loacted in Start/Programs/Microsoft Games/Freelancer the program is called Examine My Account ID. Write this down or print it out.

- Now back up your game saves on floppy disk. These are located in the My Documents folder. There should be a My Games folder in there. Cut and Paste or Copy and Paste this whole folder to a floppy disk. Make sure it made a copy on the disk before doing the next step. You are doing this due to the next step. Now erase the My Games folder once you have ensured you have a copy on a floppy disk.

- Put your Freelancer CD in your computer and there should be an option listed to uninstall Freelancer. This is the BIG pain in the ass part. To generate a new MP ID, the game must be removed and reinstalled. So uninstall the game, and reinstall it.

- Run the game after you have reinstalled and run the Multiplayer game. You should see a new MP ID listed when you do this. Write this new MP ID down. Do not hit the create button. Congratulations!!! You have now made an MP ID for your friend and they will love you for life (or until they forget what you did to help them). =P

- Now we need to get your system reset to how it was. Quit out of Freelancer. Now in your My Documents there there will be a new My Games Folder. Erase it and replace it with the copy from you floppy disk.

- Run Freelance once more. Check to see that your SP games are showing up in the load window. Now run the MP game again and enter your original MP ID. You should now be able to reconnect to your MP servers and play your characters.

And there it is!!! Not a simple system, and not a fast process, but it will generate a new MP ID. Lucky for us that these MP IDs are not system specific. You can also use another persons MP ID on your system to play their characters on other servers in theory. Not sure if MP saves any character data on players system, or only on server.

Any who..... Hope this helps. =)

I have to add one more thought here that I feel is important. No matter what please contact Microsoft and tell them that they allowed a major bug to fall thru the beta testing of Freelancer. The way I see it Freelancer as it was shipped was a defective product for any one with Win 98 or ME. Now some software I can understand will have minor issues. But Microsoft made the OS that is running this game!!! They should know better then anyone to test all versions that they list on the package. Multiplayer is part of the game, and in my opinion half of the game. So half of the game I bought was useless. Microsoft and other may expect that the consumer has the Win XP OS or that they will buy it. But in my opinion you need to support all the OS out there that can run the games you produce. I hate to say it, but Win 95 is pretty much dead, and Win 98SE (my current OS) is on its last legs. But unless the OS lacks the ability to support the feature you are putting in the game you must ensure that the basics work. Multiplayer is a basic part of any game.

Sorry for the rant, but i had to get it off my chest. Also mention to Microsoft that they have the worst support website ever!!! Navigating that thing is almost impossible. You can literally go in circles on that site and never notice it. They need to rethink it. How can you ask for help if you need help to get to the help?

Edited by - JGamePlayer on 05-04-2003 19:36:48

Edited by - JGamePlayer on 05-04-2003 19:45:35

Quote From Stinger:

"If it's a copy, or you warezed it, or if the CD was given to you by someone that copied it or warezed it or whatever I'm sorry, but your screwed. You have absolutely not legal recourse. But this is not an operating system failure. If you can prove that it is, you might want to bring that up to the Microsoft customer service people when you call them. I'm sure they'd be interested."

The Irony of this statement is that The one Warezed Version that I know of, the guy who cracked it also took the time to recode the installer and exe. It actually has none of the errors that are so prevelant on these boards. No installation Errors, no ID generation problems, No squeal of Death. In fact, the hacked EXE runs so much better than the unhacked one that D.A. should pay the guy just to code patches for them.

So now I have two copies of Freelancer, one Registered and one hacked. I'm looking to make an enemy so I can give him the registered copy. :p

sorry Stinger

np Hippo...all is well.

BTW, D.A. is working on this issue, they are well aware of the problem. When patch comes out to fix some other minor issues, chances are really really good it will fix this one as well.

Patience, testing stil lbeing done...

Rob "Stinger" Lordier
Moderator - Lancers Reactor
Creator Privateer FAQ
no good deed will ever go unpunished

Man, still no fix for this?

If you go through MS support, and link this forum, they will create a MP ID for you. Takes a couple of days...and I already had one created by a 2000 machine before they answered me...but they did give me a MP number.

Of course they could have avoided this by letting the end user create a name and password on thier own for MP- and set banning to IP's like every other MP game out there.

It's not like Multiplayer is secure from hacks by this setup.

hi. im in uk. i got this game on the 10th of april and i tried playing online first time today, the 14th.

i got this problem. i have windows me. the whole things driving me up the wall. ive had games go wrong on me before but this is another level. the entire multiplayer function i payed to play being disabled because i run an os made by the people who financed the product but which they conveniently forgot about, and oh btw, have you seen our shiny new windows XP only 80 pounds and works with freelancer mp.

i know noone who runs xp so i cant get them to generate me a key. without any patch ETA i could wait a long time for a patched fix and theres no guarantee of it anyway. ill try this contacting ms support way but i dont like it or expect it to work.

what a tremendous mistake by DA this all is. at least i know it not just me, looking at this thread.

stinger: i think you got the hostile reaction because in your very first post in this thread you appeared to maintain the people with this issue must be either software pirates or stupid, while enjoying your own functional multiplayer freelancer. that would tend to aggravate people.

yea i bought this game a couple of days ago because i was looking forwerd to playing this online with other players like yourselves and i have windows me and i have the same problem i mean you could say microsoft never tested it properly if it has such a majour bug alot of systems run me as xp is still a new windows product so you would have thought they would have tested it on their last product wouldn't you.
it realy bugs me that a company that has taken over the production of the game and with all the delays you would have thought they would have noticed a big glitch like this wouldn't you ah well lets hope ms learn a lesson from this and sort this problem out. i will carry on playing sp untill ms and da get this sorted lets hope its soon as i would hate to be one of the people who are easy prey to other players on the servers because of a mistake that ms should have noticed in beta testing the game.also to top it off i seem to be having a small problem displying the text in this game this must be another bug they forgot about in me.

in space no one can hear you scream at your computer in frustraion at it all

Well i have a network running various operating systems for my self and my family including win 98se on one station, and all seems to be working fine with the MP ids, it might be worth noting that the 98se machine hasnet had any windows updates installed on it, so your problems may lie in that direction, sorry i wouldnt touch ME with 10 yard barge poll, but if you consider ME is a late 9x operating system so could already have an update that would cause this, may be a funky dll, creating ids for someone wouldnt be difficult tho, it would need to be done by email or some private corrospondance, other wise i suspect, a number of people could use the same account id screwing up your stats and such.
AS A NOTE
The multiplayer key is stored in the registary at this location
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Freelancer\1.0AS a string value stored in this fashion >>> xxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxx-xxxx
It might be worth checking the reg to see what you have in there.

Edited by - CrazedMoon on 21-04-2003 00:59:09

Hey guys, I was just wondering, has anyone looked in thier freelancer/exe dir for a file called myflaccountid.hta, if you run it, it will both show and allow you to print your mp id code, I used it since I have a machine both at home and at the office that I play Freelancer on, and wanted to play with the same account at both places. I do have to say that I have an old pII 350 machine tha I threw a gob of memory into and installed win2k and freelancer and have only run the dedicated server for FL ( which unbelievably works pretty well for the 5-6 players that I had on for a lan party) and the utility comes up with ID not found in the box, does this happen with the folks that have troubles with the id in 9x?

@Rice

the myflaccountid.hta only works if you have an account number created for it to display. In this case with Windows ME that is the problem. It won't display what doesn't exist. But good idea!

Patch is just around the corner to fix this folks...very very soon!

Rob "Stinger" Lordier
Moderator - Lancers Reactor
Creator Privateer FAQ
no good deed will ever go unpunished

got a messidge from ms supprot asked me to alter my registry didnt work so im stuck at the mo i have asked them to get me a account id and send one to me hopefully they will i still cant see how a patch is going to work though seeing as the account id is created whe you install the game i supose you will have to use the reinstall option to get the patch to work ither that or it will have to be a windows update patch for the os.

I am receiving the same errors. I bought my copy from Frye's Electronics. In addition, I am using Windows ME. When I click on Multiplayer -> It asks me about the rating...I countinue, then it asks for the MP account #....nothing I type in there works...product id....cd set numbers from the stick on my freelancer cd jacket. During install...I just click on express install and it goes its merry way....then immediately finishes..nothing regarding a multiplayer account #.

I'm contacting Microsoft, but I wish there was a workaround so I don't have to wait so long for Microsoft's lousy technical support (lousy being my experience with tech support for Visual Studio).


Well, they helped me out...and in record time...2 hours within email support, I got my MP account #! I'm surprised.

Edited by - CokoBorg on 29-04-2003 06:52:11

XD!
XD!
XD!

I have a problem ralated to this...but not this...

I CAN get a multiplayer account ID and i'm using ME BUT when logging onto a server it tells me that "your account and/or password are not recognised by the server. Please re-enter your account and try again"

"hmm" I think and re-enter multiplay...and it doesn't give me the CHANCE to re-enter my ID... B-)
again none of the servers work B-)


*after reinstalling several times* "YOU @@@@ING GAME! WOOOOORK!"

*after contacting microsoft support... 7 times* "AAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!"



>.> ^.^ <.<

@.@

Edited by - AlPhA<shade>OmEgA on 15-05-2003 20:43:24