How to run Halo 2 on Windows 7/ 8 / 8.1 without any Xbox live problems.

 

I have successfully installed and played Halo 2 on Windows 8.1 x64 bit. Halo 2 was released for Windows Vista as an exclusive.

 

This guide is written for Dopeman rip of the game. I am not sure that it would work for the original game. But what’s stopping you from trying. I was able to fix that Xbox Live error.

 

Here is how you do it. Follow the steps and soon you would be kicking asses of the covenants.

1. Extract the “H2.7z” file and you will get two folders “Halo 2” and “INSTALL THESE FIRST”. Open the folder “INSTALL THESE FIRST” and install “XLiveRedist1.0.6027.msi” and “vcredist.msi” and .
   
2. Open “Halo 2” Folder and run “halo2.exe”. If this gives any error of any missing dll files. Then download those files from the internet.
   In my case, there were two dll files missing. “d3dx9_31.dll” and “xinput1_3.dll”. Download the missing files, extract it and place the dll files in the root folder “Halo 2”.
   
3. You need Games for Windows Marketplace, please download it from here. Other versions may not work actually. Don’t worry it’s official from Microsoft. Open it and let it install. It’s about 30 MB’s in Size.
   
4. Now go to “C:\Windows\System32” and search for “dwmapi.dll” and copy that file in “Halo 2”. It will ask to replace, click on yes.
   
5. You also need “Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package”. Download for 32-bit from here and 64-bit from here.
   
6. As we only plan to play the campaign and we don’t need any Live features. So, Who needs product keys, There is a crack which will let you play the game offline. Download it from here. Extract the rar file and place the files “xlive.dll”, “MF.dll” and “MFPlat.dll” in “Halo 2” folder.
   
7. Now run “halo2.exe” and see if this opens and allows you to play. If you have done everything as I said, then I am pretty sure that you would be able to play this game.
   
8. If you are able to play. Enjoy and then please show some love in the comments.

I have completed this game a few days ago. It worked fine. No lags. I tuned down the setting little bit and it was a piece of cake.
I have tried it on the Dopeman Halo 2 Rip. I am not sure about the original. But please try and help others. I made this guide because I had seen many people complaining about this game. Most of them weren’t able to play it including me because of the Xbox live not initialised error.

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How to install Subway Surfers in Lumia 520 (512 mb) Windows Phone 8.

 

Depressed because you can’t install Subway Surfers on your newly bought Lumia Phone. Freetechy again comes to your rescue.

Update: Kiloo Games has updated their “Subway Surfers” with 512 MB RAM support. You can download the original game here.
So, yeah no need to use this guide for this purpose now. But again, You can actually get Windows Phone 8.1.

What really is the problem with Windows Phones while Android Phones could handle this game.

Windows Phone 8 does have a limitation regarding RAM. It gives less memory to the 3rd Party apps and reserves more for the System. This is done to maintain the phone performance. You see this is why Windows Phones are optimised and are lag free. But you do sacrifice few things. Games are not really apps, due to their power hungry nature they require more power, and since this platform limits the use of RAM, they are become incompatible.

Where as Android takes a very different approach it gives more RAM to app and often gives poor performance during normal use. So a friend of yours who is carrying a cheap android phone can boasts some nice games to you.

 

What is the solution then?

Well I don’t have an actual solution as it’s the work of the game developers to optimise the game to run on low hardware. But I do have a workaround to run this quite an addictive game on you Lumia Phone.

While the Windows Phones having 1GB RAM like L1020,L920,L820 could download it from the Official Marketplace. But low or mid range phones like L520, L620, L625, L720 are not having enough resources to install it.

Well, the thing is we have to developer unlock our phone. Developer unlocked phones have to ability to sideload apps and this apps can use more system resources. We will use this advantage to install Subway Surfers on Windows Phones.

 

Enough talk, Let’s do this. Follow the steps and You would be soon playing this game on your phone.

1. First we need to make an App Studio Account. So, fire up your favourite browser and go to App Studio site and register with your Windows Id. The site may change its look so you have to figure out and find to register with app studio.
   
2. After registering, we need to install an app called “Preview for Developers”, don’t worry it’s an official app from Microsoft Corp. Download it and install it on you phone.
   
3. Open the application on you phone and go through the whole phone registration process. If everything goes fine, you will soon see this message in the app.
   
    
   
   
4. Now some dirty work. Since we need to sideload apps, we need to download Windows Phone SDK. But the official SDK is too big about 1.2GBs. So, we are going to download one smaller version which is about 60mb. Here is the download link.
   
5. Before installing we need one extra thing, .NET framework 4.5.1, download it again it’s only about 60mb. Here is the download link. Then install this Framework first.
   
6. After installing the Framework, install the SDK which you have previously downloaded.
   
7. After installing the SDK, you will find two applications on your desktop. If not then search in the start menu. If you have windows 8 or 7 search for “Windows Phone Developer Registration” and launch it.
   
8. One windows will open and would ask you to connect your phone and unlock the passcode on the phone. It will then proceed and ask to sign in.
   
9. Enter your windows id and password, the one from which you registered the app studio. Then click on “Unlock” and your phone would get developer unlocked. You would see something like this, the next time you open the same application.
   
    
   
10. Now, we are very close to installing this game. What we need is the .xap file of the Subway Surfers game. Here is the download link.
    
11. After downloading this we need one more tool to install the xap file on you phone. It’s called WPV Xap Deployer. Here is the download link.
    
12. Now is the happy time, download it and open WPV XAP deployer. You will something like this.
    
     
    
13. Click on “Add XAP files”, locate to your download subway surfers xap file. Make sure you have connected your phone to PC and check Target is Device.
    
14. With sheer pleasure, Hit DEPLOY. Wait for a moment (90 sec) and Tada you have successfully installed Subway Surfers on your Lumia Device.
    
     
    
    
15. Jump, Play, Dodge, Hit, Surf, do whatever to enjoy your Windows Phone.

 

Note: I am in no way supporting piracy here, the game is officially free and I don’t hosts the xap files. All the copyrights belong to their respective owners.

You may do the whole process on Windows 7. But Windows 8 is recommended.  

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