How to Enter a Game into Smartlaunch

This guide will help you setup a new game and add license management to it in Smartlaunch. The game we will be using as an example in this guide is Battlefield 1942.

Step 1: Setup the CD Image Mounter

Not all, but most games require that the CD that you installed the game with is inserted into the CD-Player when starting the game. But we are using the CD Image mounter instead; to mount a file that is an exact copy of the original CD, this will make it look like we have the original CD in the CD-Player. If you dont know how to create an Image from a CD, then download the guide from the Smartlaunch member area. Start by bringing up the Smartlaunch server window from the system tray by simple clicking the Smartlaunch icon. The server should by default be locked, press the Unlock button and enter the administrator username and password.

After the server is unlocked, press the Settings button and click open the Application Management section, and select the General Settings option. In the bottom of the right side, click the checkbox next to the text reading CD Image mounter, this will let you edit the textbox below the text.

Smartlaunch assumes that you are using the most common CD Image mounter called Daemon Tools, and has therefore already set the path to the default installation point. If you are using another program than Daemon Tools to mount your CD Images, or if you have installed Daemon Tools to another drive or directory than specified in the textbox, edit the textbox so that it points to the correct executable. If you have not yet installed a CD Image mounter program and wish to do so now, then we recommend that you use Daemon Tools which can be downloaded from this location:
http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/portal/download.php?mode=ViewCategory&catid=5

How to Enter a Game into Smartlaunch

Page 1 of 9

Step 2: Setup License Management

Click License Management to open up the License Setup list on the right side, from here you can add new License Setups or edit already existing ones. To make Smartlaunch manage your Battlefield 1942 licenses, first click the Add button to open up the License Setup window. In the License Setup window, click the Click here button and choose Battlefield 1942 from the menu.

The only things you have to do now is press the Add button and enter the cd-key and press OK. Repeat this for every cd-key you have until you have a complete list of all your cd-keys. If you can not find the game you are adding in the menu, then you will have to manually create a License Setup. Instead of selecting a game from the menu in the License Setup window, select Setup Manually and fill in the necessary information about the game.

How to Enter a Game into Smartlaunch

Page 2 of 9

Start by setting the name of the game in the first textbox, after that you will have to choose if the game you are adding stores its license using a simple registry key, or if its more complicated, and you have created your own custom batch file that handles the import/export of the license to the game. If you choose Executable, then you will have to fill in two textboxes. The first one is called Executable path and here you type the path to the batch or exe file that you use, this can for example be:
C:\Bat\MyGame_license.bat

The second textbox is for passing arguments or parameters to the executable or batch file, if you want to add the value of the licenses you are adding, write this in the textbox:
%license%

The value of the license you add will then be passed to the executable or batch file. If you choose Registry key, you will have to specify the exact path to where in the Windows Registry the cd-key is stored.

How to Enter a Game into Smartlaunch

Page 3 of 9

Finding out how a game stores its cd-key, and knowing how to import/export it can be very difficult. If you have problem with the game you are trying to add, and dont find it in the list, always make sure that you update Smartlaunch to acquire the latest license solutions. If the license solution still can not be found, contact Smartlaunch Support and request a solution. If you want to try solving it for yourself, we recommend searching the Smartlaunch forums, for keywords such as: <the name of the game>, hkey, registry, license, key

Step 3: Adding a Game Using the Wizard

Select the menu option called Applications, this will show a tree view menu on the right side, representing the different game categories and the games related to them.

Here you can go two ways; either you choose to search if Smartlaunch already has a finished solution for the game you are adding, using the Application Wizard. Or you can enter the game manually, but then you will have to have information about the game, such as how and where the game stores its cd-key. If you want to add a game manually, continue this guide on Step 4. The Application Wizard takes advantage of already completed solutions built into Smartlaunch for the most common games and applications. Start the wizard by clicking the Add button and select Use wizard from the menu. In the Application Wizards window, fill in the name of the game you want to add. In this guide we are adding the game Battlefield 1942, so we type in Battlefield 1942 in the search box and press the Search button. This will search in Smartlaunch for already completed solution for that game, and generate a list of the applications that it found matching your search.

How to Enter a Game into Smartlaunch

Page 4 of 9

If the search did not find your application, try to narrow your search text. As an example, instead of searching for Battlefield 1942, try searching for Battlefield. If the wizard still does not find your game, try updating the Smartlaunch server, this will download all the latest solutions. If you still dont find anything, a solution for the game you searched for, has not yet been completed, or is too old or is not popular enough to be added to the Application List. You will then have to add the game manually, how to do this is explained in Step 3. But in this case, the search will generate a list of applications with the text Battlefield 1942 in it, select the item reading Battlefield 1942 from the list and click the Next button to continue. Smartlaunch will try to find out if the game you are adding needs to save any settings or save games, and if so the Application Wizard will prompt you that it has found these files and asks if you would like to activate the Personal User Files feature for this game. The Personal User Files is a feature that can save files related to a game, the settings file and the save games for instance. These files can be saved for all users or only those you think should have this feature available to them. Its not always very easy to find out where the game you are adding stores its files, therefore Smartlaunch will try to help you as much as possible. You can manually add Personal User Files to the game you are adding at a later point. If no settings file or save games are found for the game you are adding, the Personal User Files step will be skipped and the Edit Application window will come up. The Edit Application window looks exactly like it would if you would add the game manually, except that now almost all the fields are already filled in. There are still a few things that you will have to fill in though, such as which image file that should be mounted before the game start, or if you have a custom batch file that you want to execute before starting the game.

How to Enter a Game into Smartlaunch

Page 5 of 9

To start Battlefield 1942, we need to mount the image file before starting, so click the Mount CD image checkbox, and enter the path to where the image file is located according to the client. If you have mounted a drive to a folder on the network, where all the image files are stored, you can use the drive letter in the textbox. It can look like this for example:
Z:\Images\Battlefield1942.mds

The Launch batch file option is not required, but if you want to use it, check it like you did with the image file and enter the path to the batch file you wish to execute before the game starts. To make sure that the paths to the game are filled in correctly, press the Verify paths button. This will compare the executable and working directory paths with the clients and display it in the list. For this to work, it is required that Smartlaunch is activated on the clients, otherwise the computers will be displayed as being offline. If the paths to do not match, check where you have installed the game on the client and adjust the paths in the textboxes accordingly. We shall now connect the game with the License Setup we created in Step 2. Do this by clicking the Additional tab, and from the dropdown list select the appropriate License Setup. You will also find the Personal User Files on the right side, if you choose to activate the Personal User Files in the wizard when adding the game; the correct checkboxes should be checked. How to add your own Personal User Files will be more detailed explained in Step 4.

Step 4: Adding a Game Manually

As in the beginning of Step 3, start by opening up the Applications section. Click the Add button on the right side, but instead of choosing the wizard, select Enter manually. Instead of Smartlaunch filling in all the information except which CD image that should be mounted, you will now have to enter all the information on your own.

How to Enter a Game into Smartlaunch

Page 6 of 9

Start by selecting if the application you are adding is a Game or Program (Adobe Photoshop for example), and then the name of the application. The following two dropdown boxes let you place the application in the proper category. If you want, you can create your own categories and subcategories from the same menu that opened this window. The last of the required options, asks you to specify what type of game you are adding, check all those checkboxes that you think describes the game (if you chose Program as the Application Type, these boxes will be grayed out). The description part is not required, but it is very helpful for your customers. It also gives a higher quality of your caf if all the games have the correct box image, and short but informative text about the game. To select the proper box shot for the game, press the button next to the Picture ID textbox to open up a window where you can search for your game.

Simply type the name of the game and select it from the list, this will display the box shot on the right side. If it is the correct image, click OK to select the image and close the window. The address for the Homepage can often be found in the manual for the game, if not simply search Google using the keywords: <name of the game> official homepage. You can often find a short description of the game on the official homepage, if so simply copy it into the description text area if you want, or write one yourself. Next step is filling in the Launch options; you can often find all the information you need by right-clicking and selecting Properties on the shortcut to the game that was created when you installed it. The Executable path is the same as in the Target textbox, and the Working directory is the same as Start in. The Arguments textbox is not required, but some games may have use of it. Battlefield 1942 takes the parameter +restart 1 for example, writing this in the Arguments textbox will let you skip the intro movies. We are now done with filling in the general information about the game. We shall now connect this game with the License Setup we created for it. To do this, click the Additional tab and from the License Setup list, select the correct License Setup for

How to Enter a Game into Smartlaunch

Page 7 of 9

the game you are adding. On the right side of the Additional tab, there is the Personal User Files window; from here you can check those user files that you want to be copied before the game is launched. The Personal User Files are added and checked automatically if added your game using the wizard, but if not you will now have to setup and add those user files yourself. First off, we have to finish adding the game before we can create a new Personal User File, click the OK button to submit all the information you have entered and add the game. When the Personal User Files option from the menu is selected, a list of all the available files is listed on the right side, click the Add button to create your own Personal User File.

Starting from by filling in a name describing which files are being saved. For example if you are saving the configuration file for Unreal Tournament 2004, the name could be Unreal Tournament 2004 Config. The Application Related checkbox specifies whether this PUF should be used together with an application. Similar as creating a License Setup, you get to choose if you want to save files and directories from the game folders, or if you want save keys and folders from the Windows Registry. Selecting the Files/Directories option, you will also have to specify the path to the folder you want to save from, plus which type of files you want to include and which to exclude. The * sign means everything, so if you put a * before and after the dot it means that you want to select every kind of file in the directory, where as *.cfg means that you only want to select files that has the file extension cfg. For example, if you want to save all the files in the directory you specified in the Directory textbox, except those files ending with exe, the Include files textbox should read *.*, and the Exclude files textbox should read *.exe. Finally, choose if you want to include all the subfolders or just save files from the laying directly in the folder you specified by clicking the Include subfolders checkbox.

How to Enter a Game into Smartlaunch

Page 8 of 9

If you choose to save Registry keys, then you will only have to specify the path to the folder in the Registry you want to save, and end it with a *.* to include everything.

Click the OK button to submit all the information; you should now see the name of the Personal User File you just created in the Personal User Files list. All thats left now is adding this Personal User File to your game. Select Applications from the menu, choose your game from the tree menu on the right side and click the Edit.

Select the Additional tab in the top, and click the checkbox next to the name of the Personal User File you created previously. Click the OK button to submit your changes. You have now successfully added a game together with you own Personal User File.

How to Enter a Game into Smartlaunch

Page 9 of 9