Bad CD Key TWICE?

[JohnCD95 16]

Hello, I purchased the Operation Arrowhead CD key from here to use for DayZ.

https://store.bistudio.com/arma2-operation-arrowhead

When I purchased the first one it said it was a Bad CD Key when I went in-game to play.

I just thought something maybe wrong and I will buy another key from the same place.

It's doing the exact same thing, says it's a Bad CD Key.

This site is listed on the Arma website for a trusted download source.

Why is it doing this?

[Buffjesus 357]

shouldnt of downloaded hacks brah

As already mentioned in the previous news post, there is currently a massive ongoing effort by certain entities to steal people's cd-keys to then sell them for a profit. Private hack forums are full of posts of these fraudsters trying to sell heaps of cd-keys for a cheap price. We are talking about hundreds of cd-keys here, so this is not a small issue at all. The game developers confirmed that this is a huge problem right now.

Their process of stealing cd-keys is quite simple: They advertise a supposedly undetected hack on sites like YouTube and the moment you download and run it (it will probably report that the hack failed to load) your cd-key is already stolen. In many cases your actual cd-key in registry is overwritten with a banned one, so you will automatically receive a global ban message on join (see below). This is done to prevent you from using your cd-key again, so the fraudsters can sell them claiming that they are valid and not in use. Note that this can be fixed (temporarily) by deleting the cd-key from the registry and reinstalling your game. While your original cd-key is not banned due to this, it might very well end up being soon when your cd-key is being used by a cheater that purchased it. This causes many players to think they were innocently banned when in fact their cd-key was stolen and used for cheating. At the very least you will often receive a "CD key in use" message when trying to connect to servers.

If you think this is false propaganda to cover up supposed false global bans I advise you to do some research on this yourself. You can easily verify this by searching for "free ***" on YouTube. You will see lots of results and almost all of them are scams. Most of them are actually quite popular and have thousands of views. When downloading them and opening the .exe file in e.g. Notepad (warning: do not actually run the .exe!), you can find cd-key related strings such as "SOFTWARE\Bohemia Interactive Studio\ArmA 2 OA" (the registry location of the cd-key) inside.

In short, heed the following: DO NOT EVER RUN ANY HACKS OR OTHER SUSPICIOUS SOFTWARE! If you end up being banned due to your cd-key being stolen there is nothing we can do for you.

dunno why battleye website text is like that

i assume bad cdkey means the same. if not just email the support on BI to get a new one

Edited September 3, 2012 by Buffjesus

[JohnCD95 16]

shouldnt of downloaded hacks brah

I don't hack.

I never have, do you not understand how annoying it is when hackers come along, I dislike them.

[Sir Diealot 46]

Maybe you should contact them (BIS) about this..?

STORE.Bistudio.com Contact Details

[AssClown 16]

Probably if you downloaded a pirate version before, there is pirate key in windows's registry.

Edited September 3, 2012 by AssClown

[JohnCD95 16]

Probably if you downloaded a pirate version before, there is pirate key in windows's register.

I have a legitimate version.

I'll prove that if needed.

[AssClown 16]

I have a legitimate version.

I'll prove that if needed.

I mean not now. Before. Before you bought the game, did you even played pirateversion on your PC? If you're shy about your answer, we can continue our conversation in pm :)

[JohnCD95 16]

I mean not now. Before. Before you bought the game, did you even played pirateversion on your PC? If you're shy about your answer, we can continue our conversation in pm :)

No I played it on Steam.

Then my Steam kept crashing for some reason, so I purchased all the Armas from the official site.

This is when I kept getting Bad CD Key.

[Dankine 377]

lol, just buy another key rather than looking for solutions? smart move to buy it from the same place as well, just in case that was the problem.

try running steam as admin.