Guild Wars 2

First thing to do would be to make sure the .dat file has the appropriate permissions.

Only 2 files you need are gw2.exe (NOT GW2SETUP.EXE – rename it to gw2.exe) and the gw2.dat file.

There will not be any permissions issues if you put those 2 files in the same folder – preferably NOT in the Program Files, Desktop, Documents, My Documents, and any other ‘official’ windows folders. Make your own folder and put them in it.

Then run gw2.exe and it will recognize the gw2.dat file, check it and then download any updated files.

Alternatively you can place them on an external hard drive or flash drive and run the game from there just fine (USB 3 port recommended).

What might be happening here is that the op has the launcher set to a different language than the friend who provided his dat file. If this should be the case GW2 will start downloading all of the language files for the language set in the launcher before starting.
You should ask your friend which language he has been using and set your launcher accordingly.

Khisanth.2948:

First thing to do would be to make sure the .dat file has the appropriate permissions.

If it is from a NTFS Secured harddisk..wouldnt that cause access issues?

I have both the GW2setup.exe and GW2.exe files in the same folder outside program files (along with the dat file, ofc), always run as admin, have the same language as friend’s file.

The only question left is if your friend has his copy updated. If he missed too many updates then it will require you to download all those files. And your connection is twice as good as mine and 20gb only takes about 6 hours delete the .dat file and start over.