Patch 1.31.1 Backup Files

Greetings,

After Warcraft III: Reforged launched, some people like myself either updated to the latest version by mistake or regretted doing so afterwards. Since Blizzard removed patch installers from Battle.Net, the option to go back to an older version was effectively lost. The purpose of this thread is to help with this problem. Below you will find a backed up version of the 1.31.1 installation. This will allow you to revert to the last patch before Reforged, but know that this is a purely singleplayer version.

THIS IS NOT A FREE OR PIRATE VERSION OF WARCRAFT III.
YOU NEED A VALID, LEGAL CD-KEY TO RUN THIS.
DO NOT DOWNLOAD OR USE THESE FILES IF YOU DON'T HAVE ONE.

Due to the above, I will not be offering any assistance in circumventing proper activation and any tips or questions about this will be immidiately reported to site moderation. If Blizzard Entertainment or Hive Workshop staff takes issue with this thread, please contact me and I'll remove all download links without delay.

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GAME CLIENT DOWNLOAD
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1. Recommended:

Game client - one file (1.89 GB): Link (MediaFire)

2. Alternative links:

Game client - older upload (1.94 GB): Link (MEGA) or Link (Hive)

Game client - split into 250 MB parts:
Part #1 - Link. Part #2 - Link. Part #3 - Link. Part #4 - Link.
Part #5 - Link. Part #6 - Link. Part #7 - Link. Part #8 - Link.

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ADDITIONAL FILES
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a) Language Fix: Link (Google Drive)
- this .reg file will fix the problem with the game using your OS language, it might also resolve stuttering problems.

b) Cleaned up files: Link (Google Drive)
- these files were removed from the older download, you most likely won't need them.

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HOW TO INSTALL
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1. It is recommended that you uninstall Warcraft III: Reforged or any other version of the game and delete the Warcraft III folder from the Program Files (x86) directory first as having both versions of the game installed might cause issues.

OPTIONAL - I've also chosen to remove all Warcraft III related registry keys. It's better to do this as the game will re-create all needed keys anyway and having leftover/shared keys with other versions might cause problems, but it's up to you whether you want to do it or not. If you do, here's how:

- Press Windows Key + R, type in "regedit" (without quotes) and press Enter to open the Registry Editor.
- In the Registry Editor, nagivate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Blizzard Entertainment.
- The folders I removed were called "Classic Launcher", "Warcraft III" and "WorldEdit".

OPTIONAL - I've also chosen to delete these folders:

I don't think that's necessary, but I wanted to make sure that no leftoever data from Reforged interferes with classic. It's up to you whether you want to do this or not, but if you do - be sure to back up any saves or maps.

2. Download the client from the links above, unzip it using any compression software you want (e.g. WinRar or 7zip). You will see a "Warcraft III" folder. Move it to your Program Filex (x86) folder. If you downloaded the version split into parts - make sure you have all parts in the same directory, right click on the first one and choose your desired unpacking option from the context menu.

3. Run the game and then the editor using these files:

4. You should see a window asking to either enter your CD-KEY or login to Battle.Net. Choose the first option, enter your CD-KEY and confirm. The game should launch.

5. This version it doesn't need any extra patches either from Blizzard or 3rd party sites. Applying such updates might cause the it to not work.

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OPTIONAL INSTALLATION STEPS
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1. Language Fix:

- The game might launch using the language of your operating system. It worked fine for me, though other users reported stuttering.
- The reason why the language changes is due to to missing registry files. To solve that issue, download the Language Fix registry file from the link above and run it. It will ask you for confirmation. Click yes. This will automatically add the registry files and set the language of your game to English.

2. Cleaning up or restoring the older upload:

- This is only meant for people who either downloaded the older version (i.e. one that weights 1.94 GB) and would like to reduce their installation size or used the newer version (i.e. one that weights 1.89 GB) and found some issues that didn't happen in the older version.
- To restore the older version, download the cleaned up files from the link above, unpack the archive and copy the files to your Warcraft III directory.
- To clean the older version, delete all folders in your Warcraft III directory except "Data", "x86" and "x86_64" and all files except ".build.info", ".patch.result" and ".product". Your folder should look like this:

Spoiler

3. Preventing the game from being updated to 1.32+:

- The first time you launch the Battle.Net app after setting up W3, immidiately switch to W3 and check if it hasn't started updating. If it has, instantly pause it using the button to the right of the progress bar. Just to be safe, regardless whether you paused the update or not, go to Settings -> Game Install/Update -> select "Never automatically apply updates" to disable automatic updates.

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POTENTIAL FIXES TO PROBLEMS
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1. I get errors while trying to unpack the archive:

Spoiler

- If you trying unpacking directly to Program Files (x86), Windows might block the program from doing so.
- Unpack the archive in another directory (e.g. where it was saved when you downloaded it) and then move the Warcraft III folder to Program Files (x86) directory manually.
- I used 7zip to create this archives, if you experience any further issues, you might try using it for decompression as well.

2. The CD-KEY window doesn't appear or appears completely black:

Spoiler

- Try clicking a couple times in the inner left part of the window.
- Close the window and run Warcraft III.exe (in the x86_x64 folder) as admin.
- Uninstall other versions of Warcraft III and remove all Warcraft 3 and/or Blizzard registry entries.
- Rename the installation folder to something else.
- Try launching the game through the Warcraft III Launcher.exe file (in the Warcraft III folder) as admin. You will need to restore the older version (see above) to try this.

3. Graphics or performance issues (e.g. stuttering, black screen):

Spoiler

- Add -graphicsapi Direct3D9 at the end of the shortcut target, as explained by @loktar - link.
- Try downloading and applying the Language Fix file listed above. Be mindful that this will change your game language to English.
- You might also want to to check out this post by @grimgrents - link.

4. Maps/campaigns aren't visible in game:

Spoiler

- If maps or campaigns that you are using were saved in 1.32 (Reforged), they won't work.
- Make sure that your maps and campaigns are located in appropriate folders. If the folders don't exist, create them yourself, watching out for potential typos.

Folder paths and names are as follows:

- If you still cannot see a map or a campaign in game and neither of the above doesn't help, there's sadly no known solutions to that problem. Feel free to either post the map file in the thread or send it to me directly via a PM. I'm not promising that I will find a solution, but I can at least try.

5. World Editor is crashing/not working:

Spoiler

- Press Windows Key + R, type in "regedit" (without quotes) and press Enter to open the Registry Editor.
- In the Registry Editor, nagivate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Blizzard Entertainment.
- Delete the "WorldEdit" folder.

- If you're using both 1.31 and 1.32, this issue might reoccur and can require repeating these steps.

6. Test map is crashing:

Spoiler

- Work around to this issue is explained in this post by @grimgrents - link.

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DISCLAIMER
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Using the method described above allowed me to restore the original 1.31.1 Classic client, but since it's not an official installer, I cannot guarantee that it will work for you too. Also, I've only done this on a 64-bit Windows 10 system. No idea if or how it would work on other Windows versions.

If you're going to use this - I hope it works just as fine for you as it did for me. Good luck

 

Thank you for doing this man. When I opened my own backup of 1.30, the CD-KEY screen popped up, but was entirely blank... Like frozen or something. Only after I deleted all of Blizzard Entertainment registry, started the Launcher once, and renamed the folder, did I finally get the CD-Key window to finally work, and I could enter them.

 

Just a heads-up, I've tried transplanting it to my new laptop and... the game changed its language to Polish (my system language) despite my original installation being in English. I'm going to look for a fix - I think it might be related to missing registry keys, so I'm going to try importing those as well and I'll let you know if it worked.

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UPDATE: I've installed the English (US) language pack for my Windows and... after changing the system language the game converted to English. It appears that the way it works is that if there are no registy keys to set the language, the game defaults to the one used by your operating system.

 

This might actually be a hint of how to change wc3 language for that guy, who is looking for a way to make it italian... @Jarrot

 

@Jarrot
see this

 

Further update - I've opened the game, tried playing a campaign mission, custom campaign map, singleplayer vs AI game, saving and loading a game and running the WE. All appear to be working correctly. Gonna attempt to transplant the registry keys now (as I'd prefer to change my system language back to Polish, lol)

Once I'm done testing a couple more things, I'll let you know what I've found and provide a quick guide on how to set this up in the OP.

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Okay, found a fix for the language issue. Gonna post it in the OP along with some tips on how to get this running in a moment.

 

There was nothing wrong just a ton of folders and old legacy stuff that a clean 1.31.1 install would have thats what i ment. it probably woudln't affect anything haha.

 

You said it would cause "issues"... Maybe I misunderstood something, dunno.

So, should I bring the links back? Or is it better to leave it down?

 

I don't see why there would be any issues really.

 

Okay, I may have seriously overreacted

The thing is, the version I uploaded comes from my old laptop and uhm... I think I've originally installed it as 1.26 and then updated it a couple of times without ever doing a clean install. This is probably why it's bloated. Anyway...

I've brought the links back up and added another disclaimer. I'm not going to tinker with it anymore, ultimately it's better than nothing and if people want to try then now at least they've been warned

 

id bring them back we NEED a reliable download for 1.31.1 available and i had no issues it asked me when i logged in your download if i wanted to update. with an ingame popup wtf? but it clearly works fine.

GOnna be tedious to hit that have to see that prompt everytime tho.

if the single player PTR has no issues and stays functiona l offline tho. but i don't think we have much experience using that late beta build which came just before 1.31.1 hit live and fixed the horrendous 1.31

i might compare it to the PTR and attempt to clean up all the outdated / legacy crap mass of folders from your download but im thankful you put this up.

 

I think this is an intended feature - I got asked too, luckily you can just click "no" and it goes away.

 

The regfile did the job. Thanks for posting a solution to the World Editor problem! It feels really weird, having the World Editor not set to english...

 

With v1.31.0 onwards, one only needs the RoC CD-key to run RoC and TFT. Unfortunately, Battle.net support for vanilla RoC was also dropped in the process. To quote the developers:

 

As I'm already running a copy of 1.26a on my computer I didn't need to do anything fancy to get this version running (no CD check or anything). So if you're already running an older version there's a good chance everything will "just work."

 

How can I play custom campaigns though? The W3 folder does not contain a Campaigns folder. Even if I create one and paste a custom campaign file, it does not show the campaign when I enter the game.

 

It should be here: C:\Users\<YourWindowsProfileName>\Documents\Warcraft III and if it doesn't appear after running the game, create it.

 

thanks for sharing

 

This is fabulous news!
I was running classic on an old laptop that could not handle the giant patch. The new install directory measured about 30 GB opposed to the former 3 GB, so I deinstalled and warned all my friends and wife to NOT click on battlenet or update in any way. I am furious, all I wanted was the AI-controlled heroes to be able to select skills on level up, which they did not in 1.13.1.

My question: Are your files just a copy from your install folder?
In that case I could just take the clean install of 1.31.1 (or whatever version she has) from my wife, so I would have the same version she has and we would be able to play custom maps in LAN games... but where would I type in my key? In regedit?
If that fails we could both install it from my CDs, use each our own keys and look for the latest patches that are independent from logging into battle.net, should be around 1.27...

Isn't it a shame that one is forced to do such things although we all bought a once fantastic game (that ran flawless on older machines)?

 

Yes.

Once you try to start the game, you will see a window asking for either a CD-KEY or authentication via Battle.Net.