Install HL2 on two pc's 1 Work and 1 Home?

[iomize]

Hi, I've just bought half life 2 from tesco cause everyone else at work has and they all want to play counterstrike in the lunch hour!! But i also want to install it on my PC at home so i can play when i get home...

Reading the bit of paper that came in the dvd case i'm worried that cause of the online registration i won't be able to do this...

Am i right? Wrong? i guess what i'm asking is potentially open to argument that i might want to try and get away piracy etc... but i'm just a bloke and i just want to play my game at home and when applicable at work too (cause my boss is kind and lets me have 256mb graphics card not to mention a 19inch tft monitor!!)

Also what happens if i wish to sell my laptop? Or get a new PC at work?? if i uninstall can i reinstall to another pc then ??

Any ideas??


Thanks

Kevin

Cheers

 

[GetCool]

According to the EULA (don't have it in front of me or I'd post a quote), you are only allowed to have one copy of the game installed on one computer at any given time. It's not something you can mess around with either, because the Overwatch will know when you are logging on from other machines.

 

[iomize]

Why didn't they put that on the box then ?? cause it's not on the box nor is it in the box (unless it's on the cd)

I've always bought games when they were 3 years old and only 5.99 for 2 or something... never had these problems.... the first game i splash out £28 on and i can't play it when i want to!!!

I guess my next question would be what spec does your PC actually NEED to be? Cause it's looking like i'm going to have to install it on my Laptop and carry it between the two locations (is that ok by the EULA??)

My Laptop is a DELL LATITUDE X300 1.2ghz centrino. 640mb ram and what ever the standard graphics card is... Intel® 855GM UMA graphics - Up to 64MB ... (might not be that good gfx card...)

 

[^Ben]

Holy freaking crap GetCool just GTFO if you don't know the facts and want to spread stupid tinfoil hat conspiracies.

Yes you can have the game on 2 PC's but you can't have them both online at the same time(i think you can have 1 in offline mode and 1 in online mode)

 

[iomize]

Thanks ^Ben...

So if i install it to my work pc first.. then choose to run it in online mode all the time - weve got leased line at work so it'll never be a problem that i'm online..... and then go home... install it to my home pc.. will the online registration thingy authorise me to use it offline? I've been reading people not getting authorised to use it in offline mode...

Ideas? Cheers

 

[^Ben]

OT: You get to play games at work, nice work

Ah, heres the problem.

You haven't authorised your home PC yet? I think there might be a way of copying some files from the work PC to the home PC. But you would need to research that.

The best advice I can offer you is to maybe take your PC to work let it update etc etc and then take it home and run it in offline mode.

Or maybe, if your company runs shell machines depending on what version of what windows you have(I belive OEM wont let you) take in the hardrive and use it in a spare machine at work and do use a "dummy" PC at work. You would really need to check out the windows site for moving hardware configs for XP.

Hope theese suggestions helped.

 

[GetCool]

Holy freaking crap GetCool just GTFO if you don't know the facts and want to spread stupid tinfoil hat conspiracies.

Yes you can have the game on 2 PC's but you can't have them both online at the same time(i think you can have 1 in offline mode and 1 in online mode)

It says in the EULA that you are only allowed to have one copy of the program installed on one computer. That is a fact, not a conspiracy. Read the EULA if you don't believe me. I would quote it, but I am not at the computer on which my copy of HL2 is installed.

As for what Valve will do if you break the above rule, that's entirely up to them. They may do absolutely nothing. But my previous post was to say that in order to be 100% sure that you aren't breaking the license agreement, you should only have one copy installed on one computer.

As for them not putting these stipulations on/in the box, you agreed to the EULA when you installed the game. That's where it is.

 

[^Ben]

No.

Heres the thing, the game files are worthless in themselves you only pay for a license to use those game files. You can't have 2 licenses running at the same time.

Belive me i've tried out HL2 on other PC's with only 1 of my accounts running.

 

[GetCool]

Belive me i've tried out HL2 on other PC's with only 1 of my accounts running.

That may be all well and good, but it is a violation of the EULA. I am not making this up. Read it if you don't believe me.

 

[^Ben]

Can you paste that section because I can not find it.

 

[GetCool]

Can you paste that section because I can not find it.

I don't have it with me, otherwise I would. It's only two pages long, it shouldn't be difficult to read (I did in 5-10 minutes).

 

[^Ben]

I can't actually find it.

Is it the steam subscriber agreement?

 

[GetCool]

I can't actually find it.

Is it the steam subscriber agreement?

Look in your Steam folder. It should be right there, it's a file called HL2_EULA.rtf or something like that.

 

[^Ben]

Ah ok

 

[iomize]

^Ben Are you saying that the only way that this STREAM company know what pc i'm using it on is from the EXTERNAL IP address of the internet connection ??
If thats the case can i just VPN into work and my HOME machine will look like (for all intenets and purposes) like it's at my work location ?? Or is it done on network car MAC address or something??

I also like the idea of using Drive image.. (Afterall, everyone needs an offsite backup of thier pc!!)

Cheers

 

[GetCool]

^Ben Are you saying that the only way that this STREAM company know what pc i'm using it on is from the EXTERNAL IP address of the internet connection ??
If thats the case can i just VPN into work and my HOME machine will look like (for all intenets and purposes) like it's at my work location ?? Or is it done on network car MAC address or something??

I also like the idea of using Drive image.. (Afterall, everyone needs an offsite backup of thier pc!!)

Cheers

The idea is to install the game on a second PC, then connect to your account from that PC only once (to activate the product), and then from that point on, only use offline mode.

Otherwise, if you connect to your account many times from multiple PCs, they might get suspicious, seeing various IP addresses actively connecting to the same account.

But yes, a VPN or proxy server would probably work as well. Hell, I'm all for subverting this thing. I hate EULAs, and I think most of them are fundamentally illegal. But nonetheless, Valve can claim the final say. Just be careful.

 

[^Ben]

Yas if you can use VPN,

Login - Verify - Update - Disconnect.

Make sure you have "remember login details" checked. And voila hopefully you should have offline access to HL2.