Guild Wars 2

I’ve got a friend who’s experiencing a ton of disconnects lately, especially when waypointing, portaling, and even when trying to log into the game. I’m thinking she’s probably got a corrupt file somewhere and thought a repair might do her good. However, I’m using Windows 7 so I’m not familiar with her Windows 8 structure. So I wanted to ask how I could help her do a repair on her Windows 8 machine. I need very simple instructions, if poss, because she’s not computer savvy and messing with it makes her very anxious. So if I can keep it simple, it will help.

Thanks guys. =)

I think all you need to do to open up the search option is to hold down the Windows button while pressing Q?

There are wonderful Windows 8 tutorials available on Youtube that will make learning her OS easier for her.

And I would just try the -repair command first before getting into anything else. See if that solution works before doing anything complicated, especially if she is nervous about her PC.

Better yet, if she’s that nervous to mess with anything, she might be better off filing a ticket with Tech Support and having them help her out.

for GW repair you just need to create a shortcut to the gw2.exe and add -repair in the launcher parameters (There is a sticky about this)

For windows 8, there is a factory reset option she can use. But that will reset her Win8 Install to the way it was when she got the PC (Files will be removed)

Alternatively she can run SFC /Scannow from the start menu’s Search bar to make sure the system files are all in order.

Wait, okay, are you saying that she can use the shortcut method on Windows 8 too? Because I know -I- can use it on Windows 7, but I don’t know how in the world to find her .exe files or how to make shortcuts and all of that on Windows 8. It sounds like things are a whole other world in that operating system. (makes it so much more difficult since she’s in Canada and I’m in Maine and I can’t sit at her PC and check it out myself!)

Resetting her Windows 8 install seems very drastic to fix a game issue. I’d think before doing that you’d try uninstalling and reinstalling the game and also checking to make sure drivers are up to date. Right?

I don’t know anything about SFC/Scannow but I’ll look that up. Thanks.

Anjalena.3950
I guess you have problem with Windows 8 interface. Windows 8 internally almost the same as Windows 7.

so just google
http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-make-windows-8-look-like-windows-7/

Hi Anjalena

Assuming she didn’t customize where she placed the game on her computer, the file is probably located under c:\program files\guild wars 2. She could also just search using “Guild Wars 2” in the search programs and files option in the start menu to find the directory.

When she goes into the guild wars 2 folder she should see a file with the Guild Wars 2 icon which is the Guild Wars 2.exe file.

She needs to Right Click on that file and select “Create Shortcut” (Edit: It’s under “send to”). For ease of use, she should create the shortcut to her desktop. Once the shortcut has been create on her desktop have her rename it to Guild Wars 2 Repair so she doesn’t confuse it with the regular game client (this is important).

Once she has renamed the file have her right click on the shortcut she just created and have her go to “properties”. She will see the directory line for the game file. It will look something like this:

“c:\programs\guild wars 2\gw2.exe”

What she is going to do is then put a space and add -repair outside of the quotation marks so that it looks something like this:

“c:\programs\guild wars 2\gw2.exe” -repair

Once she has done that, she should click on Guild Wars 2 Repair. It will open up the Guild Wars 2 menu and will start repairing the game client.

VERY IMPORTANT: Do not sign in after the game client finishes repairing or the moment you log out it will repair the game client again (which takes awhile). Once it is done repairing, click on the normal Guild Wars 2 icon to sign into the game and play.

I hope this is helpful.

Anjalena.3950:

Wait, okay, are you saying that she can use the shortcut method on Windows 8 too? Because I know -I- can use it on Windows 7, but I don’t know how in the world to find her .exe files or how to make shortcuts and all of that on Windows 8. It sounds like things are a whole other world in that operating system. (makes it so much more difficult since she’s in Canada and I’m in Maine and I can’t sit at her PC and check it out myself!)

Resetting her Windows 8 install seems very drastic to fix a game issue. I’d think before doing that you’d try uninstalling and reinstalling the game and also checking to make sure drivers are up to date. Right?

I don’t know anything about SFC/Scannow but I’ll look that up. Thanks.

She should be able to use the shortcut method. All she has to do to get to the “old” desktop interface is click on the desktop tile.

In order to search for the file on Windows 8, all she has to do is type in “Guild Wars 2” and the search menu will pop up on the side. From there she should be able to access anything (files, directory, etc) with Guild Wars 2 in it.

For what she needs to do, she needs to select the folder directory for Guild Wars 2.

Thanks so much for all your help and time, Silverstarre!

What she ended up doing, because she just isn’t sure how to do any of that stuff above and is afraid of trying things she doesn’t know about, is just uninstalling and reinstalling the game. And now she’s still having the same trouble.

I told her to have her son make sure all her drivers are up to date and they are. So, barring that, the only thing I know to do is to contact Arenanet. Right? Or is there anything else, on the simple side, anyone can think of?

If she has Windows 8.1 she should make sure that her drivers are approved ones by Windows 8.1 (known issue)

Since doing a fresh install of the game didn’t work, it could also be a damaged .dll file on her end as well. She could try right-clicking on the C:\ drive icon under “My Computer” in the start menu, go to the “tools” tab, and under error check, click check now.

Under “check now” she wants to check for both file errors and physical errors, and after selecting both, wants to check the box that says “automatically fix file system errors and Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors”.

Then click “Start”. The process takes several minutes, and she should try not to do things on the computer while it’s checking/repairing the system.

Once that is complete, navigate to your Documents > Guild Wars 2 folder and in there you should see a file called Local.dat. Delete this file.

Then run -repair. (Very important she follows this step) Just doing a fresh install of the game may result in getting the same problem again. -Repair could potentially patch this problem while a clean install wouldn’t have the patch needed to fix the issue.

This may help with any damaged files she might have on Windows that are interfering with the game running properly. After it finishes. follow any other prompts Windows tells you to do.

Then restart your computer.

This MIGHT help fix the problem, but it’s hard to say without an error log that shows exactly why she is crashing.

Okay. I’ll try to see if she can get to her C drive and find those things. She doesn’t even know how to search for files on her computer. Or how to explore directories. For me on Windows 7, I click the Folder tab on my task bar to explore and go to whatever directory I want. If I want to search, I can search in those windows or hit my Start button and do a search right there. But I don’t have any clue, since I can’t see her computer, how to tell her what to do on her computer to find “My Computer” or how to get to “Documents\Guild Wars 2” directory, etc. Ya know? It’s really difficult trying to help people who have so little understanding of computers especially since it tends to make them very very anxious and frustrated and upset very quickly. =(

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing about Tech Support. Thank you so much for all your help. I really appreciate it. =)

Just for future reference.

https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/28148006-Repairing-the-Game-Client

Fairly simple process.