Not so long ago my laptop totally crashed, it's a piece of junk now. I did not back-up the account id - my bad.
Fortunately the hard drive is ok so I thought I could retrieve my old account id. But how, since the registry editor makes you able to edit... current registry?
I've found solution to that.
Before we start, I must say one more thing.
The guide to get the Account id here said to look for it in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Freelancer\1.0, but in my case I couldn't find it. I made a search and found it in the same folder tree, but under HKEY_CURRENT_USER.
I don't know why there is such a difference - so I will describe how to find the Account ID in case it was stored in both HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and HKEY_CURRENT_USER.
So, to make it clean, different colors will be applied: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
and HKEY_CURRENT_USER
WARNING: ALWAYS REMEMBER TO BACK-UP YOUR CURRENT ACCOUNT ID, OTHERWISE AFTER THE CHANGE YOU MAY LOOSE IT FOREVER!
First, check where is your current Account ID to know where to paste it.
Check HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Freelancer\1.0 for InstallKey entry. If it's there, cool.
If it's not there, check HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Freelancer\1.0 - the InstallKey must be there.
Once you found it, right-click it, choose Modify and copy your current account id from the "value" field.
Paste it to some text file and save it before going any further.
Now, once we have it, here's what's next to be done.
1. In registry editor, mark HKEY_LOCAL MACHINE*, then go to File -> Load Hive. Now the window letting you load the file comes up.
* - if you mark any other folder the Load Hive option willbe grayed out
2a. In case your old ID was stored in HKEY_CURRENT_USER, do as follows:
- go to %your old system directory drive%\Documenst and Settings\%your old windows username\ and load NTUSER.DAT;
- now regedit will ask you to name the new hive; make it NEW or something else, just something that will let you easily identify it among other registry entries (we will delete it shortly so it's better not to mistake it with real system entries);
- now go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\%your hive name%\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Freelancer\1.0 and find the InstallKey entry- here's your old account ID
- right-click InstallKey and choose Modify, copy your old Account ID.
2b. In case your old ID was stored in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, do as follow:
- go to %your old windows drive letter%\Windows\system32\config and load a file named software (with no extension);
- again, regedit will ask you for a new hive name, put something in;
- again, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\%your hive name%\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Freelancer\1.0 and find the InstallKey entry- here's your old account ID;
- right-click InstallKey and choose Modify, copy your old Account ID;
3. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Freelancer\1.0, find InstallKey. Now right-click it, choose Modify and paste in your old Account ID.
4. Go back to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, highlight your added hive (in my example it's named "new"), then go to File -> Release Hive.
Done - you have restored your old Account ID:)
Now you can use freelancer mod manager to make a back-up of your account id.
Basically - from now on you have many options what to do but others already explained it fair enough.
Thank you for your attention, I hope this helps someone.
' Wrote:yeah my spell and such sucks but i what ever
(...)
Thank you, Sir.
I'm working to make it a bit cleaner and to divide the solution depending where the old Account ID was stored. I willu update first post when it's done.
EDITED 24/5/2009 8:23pm
Okay, done - the first post should be now much more easy to understand:)
' Wrote:yeah my spell and such sucks but i what ever
(...)
Hmm. Ironically i went through this mess when i tried to salvage my IDD HDD for my freelancer ID. This guide would've saved me a heck of alot of time ... yesterday:P(No really, i went through all this the day before you wrote this).
But, does your installkey ever even go to HKLM? Even 95 uses HKCU and FL won't randomly decide to stash your account key somewhere. It should always be there. The guide I think you're referring to states HKCU as the place to be aswell. I think you're confused (That, or i am).
Oh and about that, the link to that guide is broken (wrong target URL, the guide is intact).
Thank you for your feedback - I've corrected the link.
About the HKLM/HKCU confusion - I was confused myself when I did not find the account id in HKLM. That's why I posted these two methods but I have no idea why it saved the InstallKey elsewhere in my system. Maybe that's the Windows 95-98 / XP difference?
' Wrote:yeah my spell and such sucks but i what ever
(...)
' Wrote:Thank you for your feedback - I've corrected the link.
About the HKLM/HKCU confusion - I was confused myself when I did not find the account id in HKLM. That's why I posted these two methods but I have no idea why it saved the InstallKey elsewhere in my system. Maybe that's the Windows 95-98 / XP difference?
I meant the opposite. I personally believe the installkey is always in HKCU and actually never in HKLM, making that method unncessary.
He, i got a problem.
I used the "examine my account ID" to save my Key. I have checked it, its the same number like in the install-key inthe regestry.
Now, i reinstalled Freelancer for the new 4.86 Version, and replaced the "InstallKey" in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Freelancer\1.0
with the old one, i used before the reinstall.
But it does not work, the server does not show my chars, but they are definitly still there, because i cant create new ones, with the same name.