Punkbuster and Lazy Intrusive Programming

[mifdeath]

So anyone else notice PnkBstrA.exe and PnkBstrB.exe running in their processes constantly? Questionable no?

Well simply put this is a lazy hack by EvenBalance to overcome an administrator access problem with Vista. Rest assured however, they promise that these "services" arent doing anything else but anti-cheat stuff. Most likely however, in 6 months to a year we will receive notice that EvenBalance will begin to gather data through these services. Why else would they be constantly running?

You can create a batch file to start up BF2 or BF2142 and start those services up and stop them when the game ends. However EvenBalance has decided to ensure these services start up with windows by setting them to automatic at some point during their running. After a little research I found a way to control that too. Lazy programing is so easy to defeat.

So create a text file and copy the following code into it. Keep in mind however you will need to alter the following code to ensure it refers to your installed BF2142 directory, and your UserName, Password, and SoldierName. The following code is for EALink Downloaders it will start up EALink first and then BF2142.

If you have the DVD or CD version of BF2142 remove the EALink lines, and change the "BF2142Pace.exe", to "BF2142.exe". After the alterations save the file as a ".bat" file.

Without further ado;

@echo off

sc config PnkBstrA start= demand
sc config PnkBstrB start= demand
sc start PnkBstrA
sc start PnkBstrB

cd /d "C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\EA Link"
start Core.exe -silent

sleep 5

cd /d "C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Battlefield 2142"
BF2142Pace.exe +menu 1 +fullscreen 1 +eaAccountName EAAccountName +eaAccountPassword AccountPassword +soldierName SoldierName

sc stop PnkBstrB
sc stop PnkBstrA
sc config PnkBstrA start= disabled
sc config PnkBstrB start= disabled

One more step and you are golden. After saving this text file as a ".bat" file, open the properties of your old BF2142 shortcut and change the "Target" Line to point at wherever you saved the batch file.
Now after the game quits the services (PnkBstrA and PnkBstrB) will stop and then be set to disabled. The command window will close and those services will not start up when windows starts.

Vista Users most likely this will work but I havent had a chance to test it yet.

Thx to lorcro2000 for his help streamlining the code.

[Sir. MatDef]

This seems pretty useful, I'll sticky it.

[mifdeath]

thx MatDef. I suppose in reality the code could be used to shut down most processes prior to gameplay and then turn them back on after. For a small performance boost.
Having not tested that though, Im not sure which ones will start up no problem. There might be some dependancies issues.

[nimski]

Could you post a .bat file to enable it again? This totally hosed my system and now Punkbuster will not start, regardless of reinstall. Thanks. :)

[mifdeath]

Well the problem might be you need to manually update punkbuster.
They have a manual updater at the EvenBalance site.

But nevertheless, those services can be found
In your start menu look for the "Run" Command
Click that and in the window that pops up type -- services.msc -- and hit enter.

The window that pops up is your Windows Services Control Panel, scroll down until you see PnkBstrA.exe

Right click on that and click on the "Properties" option.

In the new window, under "Startup Type" change it to "Automatic Startup" at this point you could also "Start" the service, but a restart would prolly do you some good anyway to make sure everything starts up properly.

Now go to the EvenBalance website, and download their manual updater and run that. Should work fine now.

The above steps will return your punkbuster to where it was before.
The reason I didnt just create a batch file is, Im not sure why it didnt work for you in the first place, so I dont want to take the chance that it would happen again. This way you can be sure of what you are doing and also see the process that I am doing in the batch file.
Please keep me updated as to how this turns out for you I could perhaps provide more help if the need be.