Ok its nearly 4 am and I figured I would write yet another call of duty post – this time about some ranking issues people have been having over the past few weeks that’s been causing people to complain.

Without going into too much detail – People have identified that Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 does have a console built-in. This console is hidden (prob because its just built on top of CoD 4/WaW tech or for dev purposes) but can be unlocked using an injector tool to trick the game into letting you use it.

So what’s wrong with this? Well  MW2, with IWNet was never deployed to allow people to customize servers using console commands. It was meant to be a fair, basic and straightforward player matching system. By throwing console access into the mix the server host is able to change settings on the fly and thus radically change the game for anyone connected to his server.

If you go on youtube and have a hunt around you will see a raft of videos depicting servers where people have what would usually be unattainable “perks and abilities” (e.g. unlimited ammunition and flight)… Not to mention the ability for the server to switch between field of views and game modes at whim.

So today after learning about this hack for the first time, went exploring to see the mayhem for myself. Upon entering a hacked server everything appears routine but its quickly evident things are not normal – the biggest problem being that kills are worth about 5,000,000 xp a piece – thus ranking you to the highest rank (70) at the drop of a hat.

Now I know that most people are familiar with this by now, and most people feel cheated out of their rank… You are lead into what you would think would be a legitimate server you found through IWNet only to find you are ranked up against your choice….

…So how do we get our old rank back?

Well, this is where Windows (Vista/Se7en) comes in handy – provided you have system restore enabled.
Ill run over it very quickly since it isn’t exactly hard. (Close steam down first)

1. Navigate to your steam directory (for me: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam)
2. Open User-data folder and then the folder with in that (numbered string). Within that folder will be a folder named 10190 – Back this up!.
3. Right click on this folder and select Restore previous version, navigate through the dates to a time/date that’s appropriate (just before you were duped by hacked servers) and select the restore button. (If the restore button is not available you can simply double click on the the correct folder in the list (opens new window). Replace everything in the original 10190 folder with the contents of this restored folder – make sure you replace everything *rather important*
4. Navigate to the CoD MW2 main folder (for me: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\call of duty modern warfare 2) and do the same as step 3 but for the players folder
5. Re-open steam and launch CoD MW2 Multi-player – This should upload your backup to the cloud and overwrite previous stats – Play a round and complete it to make sure everything is sync’ed accross.

Hopefully you can understand my (probably needlessly complicated) instructions – I know I managed to get my previous rank back to normal.
I would advise however, if you do search for games on IWNet, have a look at players before rounds begin – make sure its not full of prestige 10 players or look for irregularities such as 18 people in a 3rd person cage match.
If you have any questions/comments post em’ blow – I’m tired, time for bed

Patrick Squire – Post originally from here (for all those sites that just rip our content off)

A while ago I wrote a post about an unhanded for Call Of Duty World At War… Now I know this has nothing to do with Microsoft news but I have another fix, this time for Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2.

The glitch is to do with the retail version only (as far as I know) and happens In Act II after you finish the gulag mission, where you get rescued by helicopter/rope  after rescuing price from the prison.

Just as you clip on a cut scene would usually display, but for some reason the game crashes with the following error.

ERROR: Could not find zone ‘dcburning.ff’

If you check your C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\call of duty modern warfare 2\zone\english (This directory will vary based on your OS/Language) The file exists – so what gives?

Truthfully, I don’t know either but the only fix is to rename or delete dcburning.ff and then validate the game on steam (Right click on Modern Warfare 2 – Hit properties > Click local files tab and select verify integrity of game cache) . The validation will fail and then download the file again -this time allowing your game to run correctly.

Any questions, please ask.

Edit*: The beta for CoD WAW has now cloed – however the following information still does apply to some users of the RTM game.

I know this isn’t really related to Microsoft in any way but the public beta for Call of duty World At War has just come out and I am a huge fan. You can download yourself a free copy of the game if you go to http://www.callofduty.com/ and register to get a serial number and a download link.

If you are running a Vista machine you will most likely run into some difficulties when running the game for the first time after installation. These errors are:

-Message box displaying missing d3dx9_37.dll (or something along those lines)
-Message Box displaying: “Error during initialization: Unhandled exception caught”

To remedy these problems do the following:

Read the rest of this entry »

Nothing says rock and roll like a song about Microsoft Silverlight.

Head over to Dan Wahlin and Spike Xavier’s blog to listen to the song

http://weblogs.asp.net/dwahlin/archive/2008/04/27/silverlight-the-song.aspx

Microsoft has just launched Microsoft Student Experience beta.
This site has a lot of features and useful information which is predominantly targeted at students.  
The site contains information from Microsoft internships, getting discounted software ( e.g. obtaining Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate for just $600) to a set of How-To’s.

So if you are a student or just interested in the site-Check it out… 

… its a silverlight enabled site-although is still able to be browsed without it

Currently I am studying down in Wellington in New Zealand… Its quite a nice place really…but it also happens to be the same place where WETA workshops is (Peter Jacksons SFX workshop). Yesterday I saw this:

(Click for Bigger View)

Ohhhh YEAH!! Its a fully working Worthog from Bungies(Microsofts) Halo game. This fully functioning four-wheel steering, powerful, off-road vehicle with a machine gun on the back must be (from wht I can tell) for the upcoming Halo movie. Heres hoping Now they can build a working Banshee or ghost too …

As you may or may not be aware, there has been some controversy regarding Google’s tips on some search phrases.

Some see this as a good thing (it’s helping users), some as a bad thing (they’re using their position as a monopoly), and some really just don’t care (it’s their webpage, people see it’s not a search result, what’s the big deal?).

Personally, I think this is a bad thing – but one which I’ve seen coming for a long time. It’s not the tip per se. After all, most companies would do this anyway. It’s the fact that Google says they’re not like most companies.

Remember the lawsuit against Microsoft regarding IE7? They said Microsoft was using their monopolist position to increase usage of Windows Live Search – the default search engine in Internet Explorer 7. They said they “don’t think it’s right for Microsoft to just set the default to MSN on install”, that “users should choose” and that “companies should compete for users based on the quality of their search services” – this despite the fact that it’s very easy to change the default IE search engine. (link)

Fast forward to this week, and we see that Google has done something as “bad” as what they said Microsoft did – if not worse. They are using the trust people have in them to advertise their own products. Unlike IE7, where competitors could easily add a link for users to change their default browser, here there is no way for Google’s competitors to create an ad like Google’s. A “tip” with a picture is very different from a link which is clearly marked as being “sponsored”.

As I said, I’d expect this from most companies. But not from a company whose PR department doesn’t get tired of saying “We’re not like most companies”. I see this not as a “meaningless tip”, but as a sign of what’s to come – Google betraying the trust people have in them.

And what do you think of this? Feel free to comment!

First McDonald’s and now Apple…

Apple Support has a very interesting notice available today. It seems that some of the iPod (video) units available for purchase from September 12th contain the RavMonE.exe virus. More details are available from: http://www.apple.com/support/windowsvirus/.

Also of interest is Apple’s framing of this support issue. Note that the notice is located in a sub-folder named “WindowsVirus” rather than “virus”. In fact, the words “Windows Virus” appear eight times while the name of the virus – RavMonE.exe – is mentioned only twice. Let’s be clear, some Apple iPods have shipped with a virus that affects mass storage devices. So it might not be a Mac OS or an iPod issue. But this is an Apple issue, not just Windows.

“Small number”, “less than 1%”, “less than 25″, and “easily restore” are also mentioned frequently in the notice. With more than eight million iPods shipped in Apple’s third quarter we would be interested in a raw number for that 1% effected by this. What’s one percent of a few million?

From the notice: “As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it.” Whom do you think the people that bought those iPods will be more upset with? Its just another little ploy to sell Apple computers. 

Lets face it who dosen’t like a freebee…Especially if its something as cool as A Dynamic Display Picture, A new set of Emoticons, Winks or a Dynamic Background for Windows Live Messenger.
Volkan (on his blog) just announced that content (which looks exactly Like Blue Mountain Content) is now free.

So without further hesitation get your free Messenger content HERE

Microsoft has posted a demo download for Microsoft Flight Simulator X!  You can check it out at this URL: http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulatorx/downloads.html

Source Bink.nu

Bill Gates has just become a little bit more wealthy due to the sale of 3Million of his shares.

You do the math: 3Million shares @ $24.20 each leaves him with a tidy little sum of roughly $72,609,000.

Dont worry though he still has a few more left:- OWNERSHIP: 972,499,336 (Direct)  425,066 (Indirect)

Stock info

Microsoft have a public preview of their new and upcoming home page (aka www.microsoft.com ) 

The new page dosn’t take up a whole page width (not on my monitor anyway) and is a whole lot more streamlined and a whole lot more JavaScript.

You can test it out right now-check it out here http://preview.microsoft.com/en/us/default.aspx

Edit: Hey, Zack ‘ere. Just wanted to add, Microsoft are jumping on the “Web 2.0″ bandwagon, yeh Patrick’s right in saying there’s a lot of JScript, but it’s actually ‘Atlas’, Microsoft’s version of AJAX on the page. It’ll run as if it’s a Windows desktop in the end… but just as a web page… strange I know

If you have checked out digg.com latey you will see countless posts about the new “Microsoft iPod Killer”,  unfortunatly MSBLOG is no exception, however we/I hope to give you more info to enlighten you about this new and amazing upcoming product from Microsoft.

When looking at the Zune (Concept Image)…Its not ‘that’ different to the iPod…Same general layout of the early generation ones. It has what looks to be a click wheel and 2 buttons (play/pause and return buttons). Aside from the slightly taller and bigger screen it pretty close.

This is the known facts about the up and coming Zune music player from Microsoft.

• ZUNE is Microsoft’s Media Player. They hope to take some market share away from Apple’s iPod.
• ZUNE should be available in several colors.
• ZUNE will have Wi-Fi capability. Exact uses of the Wi-Fi are not known at this time. (rumored to be able to share music between other Zune users via WiFi)
• ZUNE will play video and audio.
• ZUNE will interact with an online music store.
• Zune will feature an expansion port, much like the iPod’s dock connection.

Either way its more competition…and more competition in theory should equal lower prices for US-the consumer of the product…I say let the war begin

If you are hungry for more info please watch this NBC video about this new concept (very interesting)
Or check out this site where i got a lot of information from http://zuneinfo.com/

Microsoft’s new Network Diagnostics for Windows XP tool (xpnetdiag) analyzes information about your network connectivity to help troubleshoot some of the most common connection problems encountered in a home networking environment. (Support Document: KB914440)
The Network Diagnostics for Windows XP tool analyzes the following tests:
• IP Configuration Test
• Default Gateway Test
• Winsock Test
• DNS Test
• Firewall Test
• Internet Connectivity Validation Test

I tried it out-its pretty good…esp to diagnose pesky network errors.
Grab it here

I’m sorry if this is not really techy but I wanted to post about it anyway .
Testers are for ever remoting into other computers to try “repo” bugs etc and often its hard enough to get the bugs let alone navigating to the remote desktop icon or typing “mstsc /v:(address) in run.

Introducing the new Remote Desktop Gadget for Vista by Frameworkx allowing you to quickly and easily connect to a remote machine in full screen or console mode. This is out-standing

Get it from HERE (x64 & 86)