Playing Lineage 2 in Windows 7 (Gameguard Fix)

If you’ve tried to play Lineage 2 on Windows 7 you’ve probably been bummed out to find that you get that pesky “GameGuard” error that has been plaguing pretty much every game in Windows 7 that uses GameGuard. What purpose GameGuard serves I have never bear witness to, it’s only given me problems, and this definitely is not the first time.

There is a solution that works for both Aion (not sure if you even need it anymore, they may have patched Aion) and Lineage 2, and probably any game in Windows 7 that needs GameGuard. I guess I should give a little disclaimer and say that you should “do this at your own risk” because you are technically messing with files in the game directory, which is usually against the TOS/EULA, but in reality you’re not doing any harm and without this fix you wouldn’t be giving them $15/mo and playing their games. Since they don’t want to fix it themselves (yet), this is the only option for playing Lineage 2 on Windows 7.

I’ll try to make this simple. You’re basically replacing the “gameguard.des” file (one small, measly file) so that the game will launch correctly, with the trick being that you need to replace it after Lineage 2 has gone through it’s auto-update routine in the patcher. Full details after the jump.

• Download this Windows 7 proof gameguard.des file (Note: This was stripped straight from another legit game that uses gameguard, I think Rappelz, so it’s not some “hacked” or illegitimate file. From what I understand, it’s simply the file they need to put into the Lineage 2 patcher themselves, but haven’t yet.)
• Extract the “gameguard.des” file to somewhere handy where you can get to it every time you want to play the game. I myself put it on my desktop.
• Run Lineage 2 and let the patcher do its thing and leave it open with the play button ready to be hit.
• Locate the Lineage IISystem folder that already has a “gameguard.des” file in it. Default location is C:Program FilesLineage IISystem or if you’re in 64bit Windows 7, C:Program Files (x86)Lineage IISystem
• Copy the “gameguard.des” file that you extracted from the download and replace the one that is in the Lineage IISystem folder
• Now hit the play button

Sure, it’s kind of obnoxious to have to do this every time you want to play, but it’s better than not playing at all if you really want to play.

Enjoy some Lineage II on Windows 7!