MekTek releases Mechwarrior 4 Mercenaries- How to install it
Looking for a way to install MekTek's Mechwarrior 4? Head to to "Plan C".
It seems that MekTek FINALLY got through all of the legal hassle of convincing Microsoft that MechWarrior 4 should be free. The problem is that their release of the free MechWarrior 4 is having some serious issues. MekTek's website is still down after being on the wrong side of a mad grab for files. According to Battletech.com, MekTek logged about 100,000 unique hits for MechWarrior 4: Mercanaries before their 'heavy duty' server couldn't take it any more and committed seppuku. You might think "well, if I got the files via a handy external torrent, I'm in the clear, right?" WRONG. It seems that MekTek's auto updater is coded to check their website for some stupid reason to apply patches. So good luck installing the game or patches when their servers are down. (Although they did fix this for any future patches).
If 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 to patch away the CD checks.
If you do NOT want to deal with MekTek's MTX launcher bullshit (plan C), here is a work around for you. This is done by the very hardworking Retro-Future Rodent on SA. Caveat: This only works with MekTek patches 17-20, but will allow you to bypass MTX completely.
You'll NEED the "mechwarrior4mercenaries.all.to.51.03.01.0017.mtx" file for this, but neither of
the other .mtx patch files are needed.
I'm also including a registry file that you'll need to edit one of line in notepad. Change:
"MTXGamesPath"="E:\\mektek"
to where you've installed mektek. Hopefully with this patch you'll never need to have run MTX,
but anyone who has doesn't want to mess up their installation should change that before opening it.The rest is simple enough:
Open mechwarrior4mercenaries.all.to.51.03.01.0017.mtx with a program that deals with zips. I use 7zip.
Make a folder somewhere on your hard-drive, I used E:\Mechwarrior.
Copy all the files inside the "base" folder into the folder you just made. This can take a while, you're moving just over 2GbCopy all the files and folders from my patch zip into the folder that contains MW4Mercs.exe
Run patch.bat and wait for it to finish. Should only take a minute or so and will inform you as each file is patched.
Copy everything in PATCH and paste it over the contents of your Mechwarrior directory, overwriting files.
Run Mechwarrior4.regYou should now be patched and ready to play, you can delete /patch/, patch.bat and xdelta. I've done some test installations and it's worked fine, allowing me to get right in, make a player and join a multiplayer server each time.
I only have access to XP Home though so anyone with Vista or 7 may well have to look at the commands in patch.bat and run them manually if it shits itself in either OS, that or give me the money to buy a copy of 7.
Reports are that his patch works on Windows 7, so give it a try and see if it works for you.
I have mirrored the MekTek patch files that Retro-Future Rodent provided. Go forth and enjoy the bounty of MekTek's free MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries (multiplayer or singleplayer).