How to Recover Freelancer Discovery Account from Dead Windows Installation/PC

[Nodoka Hanamura]

This only works for the last account used with the launcher. If you have more than one Discovery launcher account, this will help you somewhat, but to get all of your ships back will require the administration to recover them manually. If you have questions or comments, feel free to post them below.

We've all been there, we encounter a problem with our computer that requires us to reformat/reset it. If you're like me, and backup your files, or even install windows on a new partition (A part of your computer's hard drive where files are stored, like the C: drive) or computer, and leave the old install intact, you're not up a poop creek without a paddle if you haven't backed up your Discovery Account beforehand.

Windows holds data pertaining to your applications in the Registry, a part of windows dedicated to keeping information regarding how the computer works, how software and devices work, in sections called Hives. There are 5 kinds of Hives:

- Classes, which handles how your computer deals with different files (avi, jpeg, exe, doc)
- Current User, which is where information pertaining to your user account on your computer is stored.
- Local Machine, which is where information pertaining to your windows installation and some programs are stored.
- Users, where general permissions and preferences for each user on your system is stored.
- Current Config, Where Information pertaining to the configuration of your computer in WIndows is handled.

We want to focus on the Current User Hive, known internally as HKEY_CURRENT_USER in the Registry Editor. This can be found in the root directory (X:\Users\[your username])of the user account associated with your old Freelancer (Not your Disco Install) Installation, in ntuser.dat. If you are doing this from a new computer, boot up something like a Linux distro or recovery CD (if able) on your old computer, and using a USB Stick, move ntuser.dat to it.

First, open the Registry Editor by pressing Win-R (Windows Key and R), which will show the Run Dialog. Then type regedit into the box and press enter. Approve the UAC request that pops up.

You will be greeted with this display:


You want to click on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, this is where we're going to be importing your old hive.

Go to File, and then click on "Load Hive..."



Then, using the explorer dialog to select the hive file, go to where you placed the ntuser.dat file, or, if you're opening it from a old install on your computer or hard drive connected to your computer, go to the drive your old windows installation is on, then go to Users/Documents and Settings and then navigate into your old user account. You may need to take ownership of this folder, as Windows doesn't know about the old account that owned it. If this is the case, right click your old user folder, and then click Properties. Go to the Security Tab, and click advanced. A window will show, saying "Advanced Security Settings for [folder name]". Go to the Owner Tab, and click Edit at the bottom of the window. In the new dialog, Select your account, check "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects". This will make sure all files and folders inside your user account have the same owner as their root, which is your old user folder. Then click Apply on all three windows. Windows will then overwrite the permissions of all files and folders in your old user folder with the new owner. Depending on the amount of files you have and the speed of your hard drive and CPU, it may take some time for it to overwrite the owner on every file. Once you're certain that Windows have overwritten all permissions, you can go into your user folder, and then type into the filename box ntuser.dat - then click Open.



Once you have done that, give your Hive a name in the "Key Name" field. What you name this isn't important, just as long as you DO give it a name. Failing to do so will cause the import process to fail.


Once you have done that, Navigate to the imported hive, and then go to Software > Microsoft > Microsoft Games > Freelancer > 1.0. You will see two keys in the right box - MPAccountName and MPAccountNameSig. These two values are important, as they are what we need to import your profile into the Account Manager. Click Modify on both, and copy and paste both of them into a notepad document.

Finally, open up the Freelancer Discovery Launcher, and go to the account tab. Click Manage Account, and from there, Add Account. Give the account a name and Description, and then paste the value for MPAccountName into the Code Field, and the value for MPAccountNameSig into the Signature field, and click OK.



Double click the new account you made and Launch the game. If you did it right, you should be able to access your old characters!

Furthermore, make sure you unload the hive you added to your registry by selecting it, and going to File > Unload Hive in the Registry.

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