In addition to serving as a starting point for playing World of Warcraft, the Blizzard Launcher is designed as a means for us to deliver World of Warcraft news, provide links to important community- and support-related updates, and notify you of Trojan or third-party World of Warcraft cheat programs running on the computer on which you're playing the game. Our goal with the Blizzard Launcher is to provide quick and easy access to information that would be of interest or assistance to you as a World of Warcraft player.

Features

• News & community/support updates - Stay up to date on the latest World of Warcraft topics.

• Play button - One click starts World of Warcraft.

• Automatic Trojan/cheat program scan - If a Trojan or 3rd-party cheat program is detected, a notification will appear with additional helpful information.

• Support button - Provides quick access to the World of Warcraft support Web site.

• Public test button - Runs the World of Warcraft test realm client, when the test realms are live.

News & Community/Support Updates

In the News section of the Blizzard Launcher, you can read about the latest topics of interest to World of Warcraft players. We'll update this section regularly with links to the most recent Web-site posts that we've made. For example, articles on upcoming game content, news about World of Warcraft contests, World of Warcraft player-guide updates, and more will all be linked to from this section. We'll also link to certain posts in the World of Warcraft forums, as well as to current support-related topics. To the left of the News section, we'll include a hyperlinked graphical highlight of an especially prominent news update.

Play Button

Clicking the Blizzard Launcher's Play button will start World of Warcraft for you.

Automatic Trojan/Cheat-Program Scan

If a Trojan or third-party World of Warcraft cheat program is detected on the system on which the Blizzard Launcher is running, a message will appear with additional helpful information. Trojans are hidden programs designed for a number of malicious purposes, such as spreading computer viruses and stealing World of Warcraft account and password information. The Blizzard Launcher is intended as an additional level of security against these programs, but we strongly recommend that players also install dedicated anti-virus software on their computers.

Third-party cheat programs are designed to give players an unfair advantage in World of Warcraft. The scan that the Blizzard Launcher performs is provided solely for your protection and to give you an opportunity to remove any detected cheat program before you play World of Warcraft. It does not report any information back to Blizzard. If you choose to bypass the Blizzard Launcher (see below) and run World of Warcraft without removing any cheat program it might have identified for you, you risk having your World of Warcraft account closed if the cheat is detected while you're in game, regardless of who was responsible for installing it.

We've often found that players whose account information had been compromised by a Trojan program or whose World of Warcraft accounts were banned for using a third-party cheat program while playing were unaware that these programs existed on the computer they used to play the game. This scan will be particularly helpful to those players who share computer access with multiple users, as is the case in Internet gaming cafes and single-computer households.

Support Button

The Blizzard Launcher also gives you quick access to the World of Warcraft support Web site, which contains a great deal of helpful information. There you'll find detailed answers to questions you might have about in-game, billing, or technical issues you might be experiencing with World of Warcraft.

Public Test Button

When a test version of World of Warcraft is live on our test realms, you can click this button to start your World of Warcraft test client. Helping test upcoming World of Warcraft patch content on the test realms requires that you have the current test client installed on your computer. This client will be made available via our community Web site, along with instructions on how to install it and copy your character(s) to the test realm, whenever a new version of the game is ready for testing.

Bypassing the Blizzard Launcher

Because the Blizzard Launcher was designed to provide quick access to World of Warcraft and to important World of Warcraft-related information, as well as to help protect you from harmful programs that might have been installed on your computer without your knowledge (or on the computer on which you're playing World of Warcraft), we strongly recommend that you use the Blizzard Launcher as your starting point for the game. However, if you prefer to bypass the Blizzard Launcher and do without the benefits it provides, you can run World of Warcraft by double-clicking the WoW.exe file located in the World of Warcraft folder.

Additional Information

To see answers to some frequently asked questions about the Blizzard Launcher, please read the Blizzard Launcher FAQ, which is located at the World of Warcraft Support Web site.

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