Fixing the ‘Warcraft III\InstallPath’ Registry Error

Posted on March 25th, 2008 - 9:04 pm - 26 comments

When I was going to patch my copy of WarCraft 3: The Frozen Throne (aka WC3) this evening, an error occurred when the patch, War3TFT_121a_121b_English.exe, was executed:

Registry error loading key ‘Warcraft III\InstallPath’
The system cannot find the file specified.

The reason I got this error was that my copy of WC3 was from an external backup harddrive, meaning I hadn’t made a fresh install on the harddrive. When I tried to access the Blizzard Support, all I got was “Knowledge Base currently unavailable”. Searching for it gave moot results, such as “re-install the game” and “contact Blizzard”. With a few try-and-fail‘s I got it working:

  1. Run the game and make some configurations, then exit game
  2. Run the Registry Editor: Start > Run > regedit
  3. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Blizzard Entertainment > Warcraft III
  4. Right-click, choose New > String Value, call it InstallPath
  5. Right-click on InstallPath and choose Modify
  6. In Value Data, write the adress to your W3C folder, for instance E:\Games\Warcraft III\
  7. Click OK, then close Registry Editor
  8. Run patch

The first instruction is just to make sure there’s some registry details for WC3 for the Registry Editor. The configurations you make in-game doesn’t need to be any special. Just turn the background music off, for instance.

Update April 13th: This can also be used when applying StarCraft’s 1.15.2 Upgrade Patch. Follow the instructions above, but instead of the Warcraft III-registry folder, go to Starcraft-folder.

Update Januray 18th, 2009: This post is still popular, but I’m not your all-round WC3 support. If this fix doesn’t help you, maybe you should contact Blizzard? I’ve now turned off commenting on this post. If you absolutely need to, you can contact me here.

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25 comments to “Fixing the ‘Warcraft III\InstallPath’ Registry Error”

  1. haltemien:

    You suck at wc3 so bad, that the game itself resists you!

    #1: March 26th, 2008 - 10:22 pm

  2. koew:

    Just need to get back into my old drive, apm and build orders – then we’ll see about PVP. Right?

    #2: March 27th, 2008 - 1:12 am

  3. haltemien:

    Your going DOWN, little man!

    #3: March 27th, 2008 - 9:01 pm

  4. Michael:

    CG with the new layout. I don’t know if I like it better then the ole one or not, yet. Looks neat tho, I’m sure Vegard would love it ^^

    #4: April 10th, 2008 - 8:27 pm

  5. Timmey:

    sounds like a lot of work for doing the same thing as my nifty little exe file I got in my war 3 install at all times, you click it x2, 1…2…3.. shasam! ^^ o shorryI tryed it out again and its more like, click X2shasam!
    oh, nica layout btw, so clean and easy to look at =D

    #5: April 17th, 2008 - 3:33 am

  6. koew:

    Is that really you…Guy?! I’ve been wondering when the Net Terrorist would do his comeback. So we meet at last. The circle is complete. Now I am the master!

    Anyways, yeah. But I prefer a clean install, since then whatever anti-cheat system (Warden?) Battle.net is running wouldn’t do shit to me. That’s also why I don’t use W3CBanlist and such apps. Unsafe sex gives you most STDs.

    #6: April 17th, 2008 - 10:03 am

  7. Fireman3521:

    i tried to move it back to C: but didnt worked so i tried your method… and it works just fine ! thanks a lot !

    #7: July 1st, 2008 - 3:46 pm

  8. ciki:

    Thanks a lot! All work fine!you’re good doode! :D peace

    #8: July 9th, 2008 - 9:15 am

  9. Skater:

    Thanks very much

    #9: July 28th, 2008 - 8:47 am

  10. snakeboy:

    thanks alot dude now i can poon ur ass on bnet

    #10: August 30th, 2008 - 8:23 am

  11. koew:

    Hehe, we’ll see about that! I play on Northrend btw.

    #11: September 2nd, 2008 - 3:38 pm

  12. captcha:

    Thanks so much!

    #12: September 21st, 2008 - 6:25 pm

  13. Alex:

    It’s works for Starcraft too. Thanks.

    #13: October 19th, 2008 - 9:59 pm

  14. okhawa:

    how about this..

    Blizzard PrePatch v2.70 compiled on Jul 7 2003
    This program patches Warcraft 3

    Log created at 1:23 am on 10/22/2008

    ERROR: unable to create file ‘D:\Warcraft III \BNUpdate.exe’
    The system cannot find the path specified.

    RESULT: Prepatch failed

    i had tried that way but when i tried again error like that come

    #14: October 21st, 2008 - 7:08 pm

  15. ralph:

    i tryed what u said it didnt work.igot the same error

    #15: November 23rd, 2008 - 12:58 am

  16. koew:

    Ralph, what does your InstallPath say? Is it the target specified as your WC3-folder?

    #16: November 23rd, 2008 - 4:07 am

  17. som1:

    it worked now i finely can epdate PEACE my bro

    #17: December 5th, 2008 - 3:17 pm

  18. ashkan:

    How do you find out this sort of things?

    #18: December 12th, 2008 - 3:45 pm

  19. koew:

    Easy. It said Registry error so I figured that I had to snoop around some in the registry, using regedit. When I found the WarCraft-folder there I also saw that the InstallPath was nonexistant. Sometimes it’s easier to figure it out yourself, then write about it on the net, eh?

    #19: December 15th, 2008 - 1:29 am

  20. mattathias:

    THANKS SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!! =D You’re Good.

    #20: December 16th, 2008 - 3:59 pm

  21. marmat:

    thanks alot, you’re the best :P :)

    #21: January 3rd, 2009 - 5:46 pm

  22. Sigg3.net:

    God, I hate Warcraft III.

    #22: January 5th, 2009 - 10:41 pm

  23. sham:

    Where do I find this “Run the REGISTRY EDITOR: Start > Run > regedit

    #23: January 11th, 2009 - 8:35 pm

  24. koew:

    You press the Start-button (the one with the Windows-logo) on your taskbar, click on Run, type in “regedit” without the quotes, then press ENTER.

    #24: January 12th, 2009 - 3:43 pm

  25. warcraft player:

    Umm ive done everthing that post says and it still wont work

    #25: January 15th, 2009 - 10:08 am

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