Chapter VI: Managing Multiple MPID's

[Maverick]

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Chapter VI: Managing multiple MPID's

As explained in the first part of this guide, you will have 5 empty slots when you start out on Void.
However, at some point you might feel that not even these 5 are enough and you have a need for more than 5 chars for one reason or another. In that case you will have to create another MPID.

Since this is not a very simple thing to do, I have created a tutorial on how to.

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Tutorial on how to manage multiple MPID's.

Every Windows account gets assigned its own Freelancer MultiPlayer ID, the first time you log on with that Windows account. This MPID is used by the server to determine who you are and exacty what chars and their settings have to be used.

Freelancer Multiplayer uses that code, which is stored into the Windows registry at that time.
By means of creating a registry entry you can manually save the MPID-code into the registry.

Note:
When you manually save a new MPID code into the registry, the old one will be overwritten!

When you create a new Windows account, and start up Freelancer Multiplayer with it, Freelancer will assign a new MPID code to this Windows account.
This MPID code can be used to create more characters than the 5 you have by default.

Of course it can be a bit clumsy to switch back and forth between 2 different Windows accounts to use either one of your MPID's. So to make use of both of these MPID's from the same Windows account, you have to do the following:


[align=center]WARNING!
This tutorial will take you into the Windows registry. ONLY proceed if you are absolutely sure what you are doing and follow the steps described in this guide as instructed.

Nor Strail, nor the Server Admins, nor myself, nor any of the Server Staff accept responsibility for any damage caused by changing registry entries.
Proceeding with this tutorial and any potential damage caused, is your responsibility![/align]


Creating a registry entry:

• First create a new (temporary) Windows account
• Start up Freelancer Void
• Right after the startup screen you will be seeing an alert window notifying you about your newly assigned MPID code.
  (Make sure you print this out by going to Start > Programs > Microsoft Games > Freelancer > 'Examine my Account ID', and selecting the 'Print' option on the bottom of the little window that shows up.)
• Close Freelancer Void
• Go to 'Start', select 'Run' and type 'regedit', followed by 'Enter'
• Expand the following branch: 'hkey current user > software > Microsoft > Microsoft Games'
• right click and select the folder in which you have installed Freelancer
• Select 'Export'
• Save it in a new folder with an obvious name like 'Freelancer MPID' on your regular Windows account
• Look up the folder in which you have just saved the exported file, and change the name of that file into something obvious, like for example 'Freelancer ID2'
• Switch back to your regular Windows account
• The temporary Windows account you just used to create the new MPID can now be deleted again
  
• Reboot your computer when done.
  
  
• Do the same with your regular Windows account, to also get the MPID if your regular chars in the same folder, next to the one you just created.

You have now created 2 registry entries and saved their shortcuts in the folder you created for that purpose.
When you now double-clickclick on one of these shortcuts, Windows will ask you if you really want to add the new data to the Windows registry.
Click 'Yes' or 'OK'.

Now when you restart Freelancer Void, the server will use the MPID belonging to the registry entry you just saved into the Windows registry by double-clicking it.


This way you can create as many MPID's as you want, each offering you 5 char slots.

There is a program called 'Freelancer Account Manager' specifically designed to manage several MPID accounts, as the name suggests. This program allows you to save as many MPID codes as you want, offers you the opportunity to create shortcuts on the desktop, which will just start Freelancer Void using the corresponding MPID, when clicked on.
If you are using more than 1 MPID, I would highly recommend the usage of this program, to prevent any false entries or even more serious problems with your Windows registry.

You can download Freelancer Account Manager from here.

[jimjoblue]

So let me ger this right.
To create another 5 slots i have to make a new user and run freelancer, thus creating another registry entry. Which if I switch back to the original user account in windows and scan the registry with freelancer account manager it will find them?

Is this right?

by the way, you are doing a superb job mav this stuff is gold!

[Maverick]

Yeah m8, FAM has a scan function that will find the registry entry (so the account) you have activated at that time. So by activating them each at a time, and hitting the scan button after each activation, FAM will find them and you can save it into the FAM index.

So again: activate - scan - save (and repeat this as many times as you have MPID's)

Hope I'm making sense. If it's not clear, ask again please.

[jimjoblue]

I got it!

i found that you have to scan with FAM in the new temp windows account for it to show up in FAM on the original account.

i now have 5 more empty slots....

question....

can i erase the temp account and still keep the new id?

[Maverick]

By deleting your temporary Windows account, you will also delete the new registry entry you made, since you still have it on your temporary account. So as soon as you have exported the new registry entry you made to your regular Windows Account and saved it there, you can go ahead and delete that temporary Windows account. But make sure you do export and save it first.

If you have saved it to your regular account, you won't have to scan the temporary account with FAM either. You can just click 'Scan' then, and it will find it.

It's all in the guide.