Play WoW without installing?

Q

qwertyaas

Gawd
Joined
Jun 25, 2007
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760
I wasn't sure where to post this so I thought why not in PC games.

I am starting to go away on business and wanted to play WoW while in the Hotels late night (not much else to do where I am going...). Problem is, my work laptop is very limited on rights - I can not install ANYTHING at all or really modify anything on the XP install. Now, I know you can play WoW without even installing and it just updates the registry for it automatically and I can just delete all the Blizzard entries afterward.

Now my question is, will that... work? Keep in mind, I don't want to have a trace of the game on that laptop since they try to keep it pretty secured.
 
why not bring your own personal laptop along? thats what id do, also no chance for getting in trouble
 
Install WoW to your user folder. It should still let you as long as you don't get the admin popup. If it does pop up asking for that, try to run as the (hidden) Administrator account, which a lot of admins leave without a password because they're stupid.
 
I have an older Mac but regardless, I don't want to carry around 2 laptops.

bigdogchris said:
Install WoW to your user folder. It should still let you as long as you don't get the admin popup. If it does pop up asking for that, try to run as the (hidden) Administrator account, which a lot of admins leave without a password because they're stupid.
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Nope, can't get anything installed there at all. Can't switch users, nothing. But I'm pretty sure WoW can be played as a "portable" game while it auto-updates your Registry. I'm just curious if it leaves any other traces other than in the Blizzard registry entries.
 
Play it off a USB stick or some external device. My friend used to do that during some of our labs at college.
 
hhara said:
Play it off a USB stick or some external device. My friend used to do that during some of our labs at college.
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And after all I need to do is delete the registry entries for it right? It doesn't leave any other trace? Don't really want them to find traces of WoW on my work laptop ;)
 
qwertyaas said:
And after all I need to do is delete the registry entries for it right? It doesn't leave any other trace? Don't really want them to find traces of WoW on my work laptop ;)
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well if you need to clear you registry... if your company goes that deep to spy on whatever you do... maybe its time for your own laptop.
 
just copy the entire wow folder off of your desktop onto the hdd. then make a desktop shortcut to wow.exe and happilly play. when you need to turn the laptop back in, delete the shortcut and folder and its clean. you could proably play rom a usb hdd, but it the slow speed might cause some problems with loading.
 
jkr266 said:
just copy the entire wow folder off of your desktop onto the hdd. then make a desktop shortcut to wow.exe and happilly play. when you need to turn the laptop back in, delete the shortcut and folder and its clean. you could proably play rom a usb hdd, but it the slow speed might cause some problems with loading.
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Yeah, the entire WoW folder is self contained. I tested it myself by loading it into a WD passport and plugging it into each laptop that my dad had lying around. I was able to log into my server easily in each one, without having to transfer it over to the actual system. I can't say for sure if it leaves any "traces" or whatnot, but it certainly is spiffy.
 
If you dont have enough rights to install stuff on the laptop there is probably a good reason for that.
 
bigdogchris said:
Install WoW to your user folder. It should still let you as long as you don't get the admin popup. If it does pop up asking for that, try to run as the (hidden) Administrator account, which a lot of admins leave without a password because they're stupid.
Click to expand...

Speaking as an admin, i'm hurt you'd call me names. :( I don't call you users stupid. hmm okay thats a lie, nevermind.

FYI any competent Admin will not leave the password blank. Additionally if you don't have the right to install you dont have the right to install regardless of folder. Your admin might have some unusual folder permissions that make your experience unique.

OP: Have you tried looking into Thinstall? It's all the rage. Honestly though you should just get your own laptop. Avoid the temptation to screw with your work laptop sounds like a slipery slope.
 
arr4ws said:
well if you need to clear you registry... if your company goes that deep to spy on whatever you do... maybe its time for your own laptop.
Click to expand...

Jr. Woodchuck said:
OP: Have you tried looking into Thinstall? It's all the rage. Honestly though you should just get your own laptop. Avoid the temptation to screw with your work laptop sounds like a slipery slope.
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Well, WoW itself acts as a "portable" on it's own without Thinstall doesn't it? I believe Warcraft III is the same, as in, it could be played with just copying over the dir and it auto updates the registry.

I don't travel that much for me to actually want a laptop. Just a few days a year. My trips are for the most part, a single nights so that isn't a problem at all, this time is just a week long.

I highly doubt they would even bother to check the registry since there are even people here that can't open files on a CD if it doesn't autoplay. I just like to play it safe - very safe (but true, if I am this 'paranoid' with this stuff, it's best not to bother with it). But when going away for a week to a location with not much to do, this could help! And the reason I ask about WoW is this is the only game I know of that works without installing it.

Well, hopefully there will be some decent bars overthere, then problem solved! But yeah, I guess I'll just leave it alone. I don't even play it much if at all - just looking for something to do in case of insane boredom up there!
 
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quite honestly its a work laptop you should not be using it for other purposes.

one of the sales guys at our place was using his laptop to torrent needless to saay he got a severe dressing down
 
Yakyb said:
quite honestly its a work laptop you should not be using it for other purposes.

one of the sales guys at our place was using his laptop to torrent needless to saay he got a severe dressing down
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Same here, caught members of our call centre downloading with torrents on their work machine and home laptops. Duh...
 
Yakyb said:
quite honestly its a work laptop you should not be using it for other purposes.

one of the sales guys at our place was using his laptop to torrent needless to saay he got a severe dressing down
Click to expand...

PrincessFrosty said:
Same here, caught members of our call centre downloading with torrents on their work machine and home laptops. Duh...
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This is no way is meant to be used during work [or work hours] at all which is also why I do not] want to install it (even if I could) on the laptop but just use it via USB. I would absolutely not put my personal things on my work laptop for it being just that, my work laptop.
 
qwertyaas said:
This is no way is meant to be used during work [or work hours] at all which is also why I do not] want to install it (even if I could) on the laptop but just use it via USB. I would absolutely not put my personal things on my work laptop for it being just that, my work laptop.
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best game to play via usb key?

plants vs zombie , youll have a blast!
 
You can in fact play WoW without actually installing it. Just copy the entire game folder over! I figured this out when I was trying to break myself from playing WoW after over a year on a private server. I figured if I uninstall the game I wouldn't be able to play anymore. However, since it's a pain in the ass to hunt down old patches, old interface add-on versions, and configure my pitbull and bartender UI's (the private server doesn't run the latest Live version most of the time), I copied my entire game folder over to my external HDD I use for backup purposes. Well, one day I was really itching to play WoW, and decided to see if I could run the game just by clicking the .exe in the backup located on my external. Sure enough it booted up and my attempt to quit was a complete failure. This was over 4 months ago and I still haven't installed it properly on my system drive, I just run it from the backup.
 
If this is a Vista machine (I thnk you said XP though), WoW could be redirected to save some files in the virtual store if you tried to run it from within certain folders (e.g. Program Files).

Another thing WoW does is check to see if it's registry entries exist. If they don't it'll recreate them. Just look under HKLM\Software\Blizzard for them (64-bit machines will be redirected to "HKLM\Wow6432Node\Blizzard Entertainment").
 
ryan_975 said:
If this is a Vista machine (I thnk you said XP though), WoW could be redirected to save some files in the virtual store if you tried to run it from within certain folders (e.g. Program Files).

Another thing WoW does is check to see if it's registry entries exist. If they don't it'll recreate them. Just look under HKLM\Software\Blizzard for them (64-bit machines will be redirected to "HKLM\Wow6432Node\Blizzard Entertainment").
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Yes it is XP. The second part I was aware of but it does it create any other entries/files anywhere besides your registry? I actually never paid attention to that before when I tried it off of my external.
 
qwertyaas said:
Yes it is XP. The second part I was aware of but it does it create any other entries/files anywhere besides your registry? I actually never paid attention to that before when I tried it off of my external.
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Not to my knowledge.
 
Wow doesn't store any critical information in the registry. It might mess with it, but if it does it's seamless and isn't required to run the game.

You can literally copy and paste the entire game folder to a flash drive and run it on a different computer off the flash drive.

You can even reformat your PC/reinstall windows, and restore the wow game folder back to its original spot on your hard disk, and play as normal. (I've done it)

It's one thing Blizzard got right.
 
You can literally copy and paste the entire game folder to a flash drive and run it on a different computer off the flash drive.
Click to expand...

All games used to be that way but not anymore...it's one thing they should get back to. Self-Contained installations.
 
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