How to get Call of Duty 4 running on Windows 2000 without installing:
I was able to get the COD4 Demo working on Win2K and played through it without any problems, so I assume the full game will work fine. I have just got the full game running up to the main menu screen, wanted to post here before I start playing.
For the demo, the installer extracts all the files to your temp folder of your windows user account. When you get the OS not supported message and then click OK it deletes the temp files. Just set the temp files to read only before clicking OK on the OS not supported dialog. Then you can move the files anywhere you want. The files in the temp folder are in the correct hierarchy for playing the game, just run the exe.
For the full game the files are in the correct hierarchy in X:\Setup\Data\ where X: is your disc drive. Just copy the contents of that folder to your hard drive. I think the default install path is C:\Program Files\Activision\Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare\ so you can copy the files there if you wish, but it shouldn't matter where you copy to. Then run iw3sp.exe to play, you can make your own shortcuts. There is a iw3mp.exe which I assume is for multiplayer.
If you want the game to show up in Xfire you need to add a key to the Windows registry.
For Demo: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Activision\CoD4MWDemo\InstallPath
For Full: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Activision\Call of Duty 4\InstallPath
If you do not have any Activision games installed you will need to navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ in the registry and then create a new key named "Activision" then inside that create a key named "Call of Duty 4". Now create a new string value in the "Call of Duty 4" key and name it "InstallPath". Set it's value to the path where you copied the Call of Duty 4 files, in my case "C:\Program Files\Activision\Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare".
Hope that helps. I'm going to go try and play, I assume it will run fine.
I have not tried patching the game, not sure if that will also check for OS or require registry keys other than the InstallPath key.
Update:
I have played about 5 levels of single player and it is running fine.
I was able to get multiplayer working and install the 1.4 patch.
Since the COD4 files were copied without installing you have to install punk buster yourself.
Download PBSETUP.exe from
http://www.evenbalance.com/index.php?page=pbsetup.phpFollow their instructions for adding COD4 and checking for updates, it will install what is needed.
The 1.4 patch does the same OS detection and I was unable to figure out how to bypass it to install the patch. Luckily someone created a rar file with the patch files. Get it here
http://www.servercommand.org/downloads.php...file&id=171Finally you will need to enter your key in order to play multiplayer. Open the multiplayer version of the game and find the multiplayer options screen, enter you key there. (I'm not sure if this is the normal procedure or if it usually has you do this during the install of the game)