Multiple Accounts

I am essentially wondering whether it is possible to have more than one account running simultaneously from the same computer? I've filled up my 4 character slots and would like to buy another copy of the game so that I can have another four slots. But i'd like to be able to have them both in game at the same time so that I can run them places and trade between them to make use of the extra inventory space.

I had thought of perhaps having another computer running the game whilst on my home network but is it possible to have two instances of the game running from just one computer?

Thx for the help

You can't add a CD key to an existing account. You have to buy a key and open it with a completely new account email address.

yes that's what i want to do, but what i want to know is can you have two instances of guild wars running at the same time on the same computer, with two separately set up accounts?

e.g. so that you can run your own characters, trade between them for more inv space etc.

Otherwise, how do people like MCS facilitate trades of over 1.4 million in cash? They must be using two accounts, but how?

A good friend, or a second comp. Hehe, I'll try it on my system tonight and see if it can handle two instanes open.

you cant have 2 instances open, you would have to have separate computers. i have the same problem...

No, I've read somewhere on how it's possible to run two instances of GW on a single computer at once.

You can run 2 instances of GW on the 1 copy - to do this you need 2 different Windows accounts as well as a working knowledge of regedit. You basically need 2 directories for GW, run one copy as 1 user accounts then switch to the other user account... edit the registry so GW points to the other GW directory.. then run GW from that directory. Thus you can run 2 copies of GW on the 1 comp - just remember to change the GW registry back to normal afterwards

hehe that was a very ugly way of explaining it.. but it used to work like that. I have no idea if ANet have patched it so that method won't work anymore.. and if you don't know how to use regedit or don't feel comfortable doing so, then I'd strongly advise against this because it is very easy to stuff things up if you change the wrong value's..

wow sounds complicated. thanks for posting that though mate.

That was a bad explination . You should be able to run the two accounts from the same pc. Just keep in mind that when you install the new account install it to a different drive or partition and while doing so make sure that you rename it to something like Guild wars 2. While giving it a different name should make it where the pc does not assocaite the the two installs of hte same application ( but you must change names and installation locations). after doing so make sure that your shortcut Icon shows that it is pointing to two different locations ( one for each accountt ). But yes if you do not want to confuse yourself or have a chance of confusion just install it on one of your networked pc's.

Bad? more like horrible explanation, i mean all u need is diffrent drive letter,

Example u have your current GW account setup on drive C: so now setup the second one on drive H: change the name to GW2 and your done.


Oh yeah and i hope u have a hole lot of RAM to run both of them w/o laggin

most pc's that are fairly new can run 2 applications of GW if the pc has 2+ HDD's (EX: C & H)

*laughs* It's amazing how people can comment about something when they obviously have never tried it.

djgriggs & Loops4879 - just changing the names of the .exe (or even the .dat) file won't work. When you run the second copy it reads the REGISTRY and detirmines that Guild wars is not installed at that location and will NOT run the second copy of GW.

However before it used to just crash with a message that "xxx is currently in use", however now it brings up a popup which informs you that GW is currently installed at the original location and gives you the option to uninstall GW or re-install GW at the "new" location. This might infact let you do it without manually editing the registry yourself - this "reinstall at this location" likely edits the registry.. it's just a matter of does it require you to re-boot.. and will it do the regisrty editing if the other location of GW is up and running.

I would say 1 guild wars instance can hog enoff of the CPU.. but 2.. hmm thats some serious memeroy swaping.

You can't run the same copy of GW twice, doesn't matter on another computer, Soon as you log on, the other one log off automatically.
With two accounts, on one computer , only possible way I can think of is (Linux Similar) Dual OS ... Install both 2 copies on each OS .. (perfer High-End Computer) ..Try "VMware" << Or Farther more, If you like to mess around.. Try Microsoft windows XP add-ins Like "PowerToys" .... Good luck trying..( Caution: Operate @ your own Risk )

I have 3 accounts.. I run each copy on a different pc. Two screens are set up next to each other with one on a switch.. If i need to operate more than one player at once i use a gamepad with macros. I had 2 accounts for a while but ran out of players again.. I would go for a second pc. Guild wars isn't really that hungry. A half decent machine runs it fine. So save those pennies and get a second pc.. That is if you intent on spending copious amounts of time playing this game.. Might be a waste if you only end up playing it for six months.

Sample Attack - actually, what your talking about is the fact you can't login with the same GW account. You *can*run 2 copies of GW at the same time and be logged into 2 different GW with them, you just need to have 2 seperate GW directories and edit the registry to be able to run the secondary GW "install" to login as the secondary GW account.

I've had 2 copies of the Guild Wars client running at the same time on the same computer - but because I only have 1 GW account I couldn't log into the game with both clients as you can only be connected once per account. But I know it's possible to have 2 clients up and running - the way I mentioned is how I did it.. 2 different computer/XP user accounts, GW copied into 2 different directories and use of regedit to get the second copy of the GW client to run while the 1st copy of the GW client is up and running on the other XP user account.

Unlike what was said by some others, just renaming the .exe file and putting it in another directory/drive won't let you run 2 copies of the GW client at once. The game is smarter than that

D.E.V.i.A.N.C.E - the main reason to want to run 2 GW clients at once is if you want to transfer stuff from 1 GW account to another. Like maybe you have everything unlocked on the 1 account but not the other.. so transfer all un-id'ed stuff to second account to help it unlock stuff. Etc and so on.

I run two copies on the same computer using two windows accounts and tweaking the registry, as mentioned previously in the thread.
I only bought a second account for the storage space and to create a permanent farming character so i didn't have to store excess armour and tweak attributes when playing a healer.
The is a guide on the guild hall forums explining how. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

thanks very much guys, I'll let you know what i ended up doing when i get my second copy in the next couple of days.

Sounds like quite a hassle. Also Id rather wait. Imagine Anet allows more character slots after a person buys two Anet GW games! Well... you can always give it or sell it to a friend...

not at any time did I say to change the name of the .exe or dat. I said to make sure to change the location path name. to make sure that the shortcut points to the target path ? I would go more into detail but my 2 degrees in networking and computers tell me that I do not have to ( Also strange how I just did it and it works )

If others will notice this is what I was stating in my comment above. ( not at any time did I say or reference to put the executable into another drive or directory. ( I stated to install another GW account onto another drive and directory. ( Why do people persist on trying to complicate things ( not refering to the person that wrote the above quote).

djgriggs - You can't install 2 copies of the GW client on the same computer. when you try to install the second copy it will change the registry to point to the new location that you just installed to. This means that when you try and run the game from the original location it will popup and say "Guild wars is installed at XXX (the second location)" and give you the option to uninstall & re-install the client there.

Funny how you claim that it works for you, but whenever I try anything similar all I get is "Guild Wars is installed at XXX" .. But then this whole thing just turns into a very ugly "I say" vs "You say" .. and thats meaningless. This is because we can both say what we want... but does it make it true?

But you know what I find amusing, is you try and come out as the "expert" by stating you have 2 degree's in networking. Guess what chump, you have no idea what degree's and qualifications or work I do. But you won't find me tossing around my qualifications and work just to try and "prove" I'm better than anyone else - I find that petty and again it all comes down to "I say" vs "you say" .. which again goes nowhere.

Edit - out of interest I decided to run a simple test. I tried a few different things and took screenshots of the results.

1. Copied the GW directory and client to another Hard Drive, but kept the names and directory structure intact. Ran GW from the original location and left it up and running, I then switched user to a different XP user accounts and tried to run GW from the alternate address..

Here's the result:



As you can see it popup's a window giving me options to uninstall GW, re-install at that location (ie let the game installer edit the registry) or run from that location. I choose the option "Run Guild Wars from it's current location" .. and this is what I got:



So nope, that didn't work.

2. Tried renaming the GW.exe to GW2.exe and see if that makes a difference..



Same popup window with same options.. Again I choose the 1st option.. and got:



So still not working.

3. Tried renaming the GW.dat file to GW2.dat file as well. same story as above - got the popup window with options and then the "unable to open/access gw.dat file" msg. So that's not an option either.

4. Logged off that account and went back to the account where I had GW running and decided to try and run the other GW client and see what happened.

Both times it came up with that window with the 3 options and if I told it to run from it's current locsation.. it just alt-tab'ed to my currently running copy of Guild Wars.

*shrugs* If you can tell me how you got it to work and I can get it to work, then I'll admit you were right. But as it stands, I can't get it to work without editing registry entries. Just copying and/or editing the GW.exe and/or GW.dat name doesn't let me run 2 copies of GW be it on the same or different user accounts. I can run 2 copies at once, but I need to edit registry entries like I've said.

and BTW - C: & D: drives on my computer are completely seperate drives, not different partitions on the same drive.

I am so sorry, I am told that I must say that I am sorry. I am only 15 my dad came in and cought me on his computer not to mention logged into his account. he told me that I had to log in and tell everyone on here that i was sorry for causing trouble and that i should not be causing trouble especially when it messes up the family name, what ever that suppose to mean. anyway i am sorry for causing any trouble and of coarse I am not even out of school yet but I do hope to go to college on day. daddy also told me to email you this but not for usre hwo yet. but hey gw is a cool game huh. well I am not from this point grounded from everything for a whole month and i am really really sorry for all the trouble that I caused. if you see my dad on here sometimes please let him know that I did say i was sorry
don griggs jr

I would just like to know how you just install another version of the game.when i do this it ask do I want to play I get my current version and not my new version.I know you need 2 e-mail addresses that I have.What is the simplest way to have 2 copies of the game on 1 computer with only 1 running not 2.

Just install it once, so long as you don't intend on having mulitple copies running at once, you only need a single install, just change the email when you login to match the account you want to use.

I have done this the problem is when I enter all information and when I am fineshed it say cd key error like change an 8 to B?I enter the right CD key and I get this.What am I doing wrong.thanks.

Ghozer on the forums posted instructions some time ago to hack the Gw.exe. Should give it a look, works great

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...959#post605959

This is the thread EF2NYD is talking about.

The hex editing of GW.EXE is so that you can run both instances of the game on 1 user profile. If you don't hex edit, you'll have to swap back and forth between multiple XP user profiles.

I was able to do this thanks all I was just haveing a hard time making out the cd key it need to be bigger.

Yep. People with your exact issue were posting all over the place on release date; I think most just sortof forgot about it.

Or try this, no hex editing
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...11&postcount=5