Often it is the case that newbies fail to get a BO2K server working because they attempt to do too much too soon. As a newbie to BO2K you should test every server locally on your own machine. Start off with baby steps. There are many ways you can cock-up even the most basic configuration and the presence of plugins will only hinder fault finding. When you are satisfied that you can get a basic default server running on your own machine, move onto playing with plugins and more complex configurations.

Below are the 5 steps required for configuring a basic BO2K server. Of course this is just a test exercise, you should never send out a default server configured like this into the battlefield or leave one running on your own system.

Some things to note about the configuration obtained below: Once you run the bo2k.exe, that's it.....the server is running using the bo2k.exe as the parent process (You notice that you can't delete it while it's running ). The server was NOT copied to the Window System Folder and executed. No start-up keys where added to the system registry, upon reboot the server will NOT be re-run.

Start up the bo2kcfg.exe (configuration tool). And open the bo2k.exe (server) into the configurator.

Under the "Option Variables" window > XOR >> XOR KEY > Set the value for the passkey :- ANYPASSOK

STEP 3)

Under the "Option Variables" window> Startup >> Init Cmd Bind Str > Set the value to exactly the same as the tcp default port. i.e "54320".

Click on "SAVE SERVER" and "CLOSE SERVER" then exit out of the configurator.

Using file explorer double click the bo2k.exe to execute it. Check the server is running by typing "netstat -a" at the dos prompt. You will see something like the following....

===============================================

Proto Local Address Foreign Address State

TCP name:54320 name:0 LISTENING

===============================================

You can now connect to the server using the BO2K client software. (127.0.0.1:54320)

That's all there is to it.