For some reason I started to have trouble (memory access errors) starting Combined Ops using my old way. Then I started to get the error Magnum was getting (No Entry '.profilePathDefault' ) trying a new way ... thanks to Adlabs for sorting that out.

Long story short, here's how I'm doing it now since I'm running out of space on the target line of my shortcut for mods and parameters ...

All I do is create a cmd file with this in it ...

set ARMA2PATH=D:\Steam\Steamapps\Common\ArmA 2
set ARMA2OAPATH=D:\Steam\Steamapps\Common\ArmA 2 Operation Arrowhead
set SWITCHES=-nosplash -cpucount=4 -exThreads=7
set MODS=@CBA;@sthud;@DC;@GDT_mods;@mapPlus;@Faces;@Sbrodj;@Kibrul;@duala;@duala_army

"%ARMA2OAPATH%\ARMA2OA.exe" %SWITCHES% "-mod=%ARMA2PATH%;Expansion;ca;%MODS%"

I put this cmd file (I call it A2CO.cmd) directly in my Operation Arrowhead folder (as specified by ARMA2OAPATH above) and run it from there or create a shortcut to it.

One other note ... some of you Steam users might have seen little red circles with question marks beside multiplayer servers and noticed that ArmA2 is in your expansion list but not checked. This is because you have to have "ca" in your mods as shown above. If anyone knows what ca stands for, let me know.

Oh ya ... I forgot about the Beta. If you want to run the beta using this method, just copy and paste the above cmd file into the same directory and change the execution line to this ...

"%ARMA2OAPATH%\Expansion\Beta\ARMA2OA.exe" %SWITCHES% "-mod=%ARMA2PATH%;Expansion;Expansion\Beta;Expansion\Beta\Expansion;ca;%MODS%"

(all one line)

Thanks for that Dirt.

Another approach would be to create a symbolic link in your OA directory pointing to your ArmA2 directory. This requires you to get your hands a little dirty in the command prompt. Afterwords, though, you can keep a simple shortcut just calling a mod like "@ArmA2."

These instructions worked really well for me: http://www.kellys-heroes.eu/forum/viewtopic.php?f=41&p=33219#p33159

Note that a symbolic link is NOT the same as a regular Windows shortcut - I learned something today

That's pretty cool! What do your shortcuts look like for regular and beta CO?

This is my regular:

"D:\Entertainment\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2 operation arrowhead\arma2oa.exe" -mod=@ArmA2;Expansion;ca;@CBA;@islands;@extras -nosplash

This is my beta:

"D:\Entertainment\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2 operation arrowhead\Expansion\beta\arma2oa.exe" -mod=@ArmA2;Expansion;ca;Expansion\beta;Expansion\beta\Expansion;@CBA;@islands;@extras -nosplash

This is my editor:

"D:\Entertainment\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2 operation arrowhead\arma2oa.exe" -mod=@ArmA2;Expansion;ca;@islands -nosplash -window

Nice! That's a great way of doing it as well.

My way is a bit overkill but I prefer opening the cmd file in an editor instead of fumbling around with a shortcut target line.

Yeah they're kind of long, I paste them into notepad to edit them.

BIS's _runA2CO.cmd script is running well right now but I still like to keep it simple and know exactly what's going on. I've modified my cmd script slightly to include fatty's symbolic link suggestion which is really elegant and probably makes your mod line look a lot nicer when you're joining a server.

Here's the contents of my A2CO.cmd file (change the parameters to whatever your situation is) ...

set ARMA2PATH=D:\Steam\Steamapps\Common\ArmA 2
set ARMA2OAPATH=D:\Steam\Steamapps\Common\ArmA 2 Operation Arrowhead
set SWITCHES=-nosplash -cpucount=4 -exThreads=7
set MODS=@CBA;@sthud;@DC;@GDT_mods;@mapPlus;@Faces;@Sbrodj;@Kibrul;@duala;@duala_army

mklink /d "@arma2" "%ARMA2PATH%"
mklink /d "@arma2oa" "%ARMA2OAPATH%"

"@arma2oa\arma2oa.exe" %SWITCHES% "-mod=@arma2;Expansion;ca;%MODS%"

To run the OA beta, change the last line to this ...

"@arma2oa\Expansion\Beta\arma2oa.exe" %SWITCHES% "-mod=@arma2;Expansion;Expansion\Beta;Expansion\Beta\Expansion;ca;%MODS%"

Bumping this thread as some folks are still having problems getting combined ops going.

I vote this needs to be a sticky. All helpful posts like this should probably be combined into a FAQ too.

UTR... we are working now to get these things into a Q&A style format, integrated with the information in the "Wanna play at SimHQ" thread, and stickied. It's gonna take some time to get it organized, but the project is in works.

I prefer a bump of threads like this for now, rather than yet more stickies.

I just wondered whether you knew that using this launcher (probably others do it too but this one works the best for me) http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=89731 allows you to very easily have different mod configs and also run Combined Ops outside of Steam? IE run Steam version of Arma2CO without having Steam running.

Also very easily allows you to have your mods in a different drive/partition/folder etc if you want?

Seems much easier than a CMD file or multiple shortcuts from an desktop organisation point of view to me. You just have a single app to run and can switch between SimHQ, vanilla or whatever with a couple of mouse clicks as well as tie external apps into it like TIR,FRAPS etc so they run automatically when you start Combined Ops.


Anyway might be useful to you or someone else having trouble with the manual methods.

Cheers,
Stonehouse

example pics: