One of the most common complaints about PC gaming is problems with PunkBuster, the system intended to stop people from hacking and abusing the games, preventing the games from running or kicking people from the games on a regular basis.

I recently had to diagnose one of these problems, in this case Battlefield 2 wouldn’t start, and found a way to fix PunkBuster and all these issues.

1. In Control Panel > Programs and Features in Windows Vista and Windows 7 or Add / Remove Programs in Windows XP, Uninstall the game(s), telling it to remove all your profiles etc. to completely uninstall it
2. Also uninstall the Punkbuster Services program if you have it installed
3. Go to Computer > The drive on which Windows is installed > Program Files and delete the folder your game was installed in completely.  This may be EA Games, Activision or something else
4. Restart the PC
5. Reinstall the game making sure that if offered a custom install you select this option.  It should give you a choice during the install to install PunkBuster.  DON’T!  Click cancel at that point or untick the selection box but DO NOT install PunkBuster with your game
6. Install the latest patches for your game
7. Download PBSetup.zip http://www.evenbalance.com/index.php?page=pbsetup.php to your Downloads folder
8. Open the zip file you have downloaded and click Extract Files in the explorer toolbar
9. When the files have extracted Copy them (we might need them again) to Computer > The drive on which Windows is installed > Program Files and create a new folder called PunkBuster.  Paste the files here.
10. Run the PBSetup.exe program you have just pasted and add your game, see if it will get any updates. It should do.
    1. If it cannot get any updates go to Computer > The drive on which Windows is installed > Program Files > Your game folder > pb and delete the contents of the two sub folders in there (the HTM folder and the other one) and any other files.  Do not delete the actual sub folders themselves
    2. Try updating the game again using PBSetup
11. Now download PBSVC.EXE http://www.evenbalance.com/index.php?page=pbsvcfaq.php and run it.  This will install the two PunkBuster Services
12. Run your game
    1. If your game doesn’t run, in the search box in the Start Menu (Windows Vista and Windows 7) or by selecting Run from the Start Menu (Windows XP) type services  and run the Windows services manager.
    2. Find the two PunkBuster Services PnkBstrA and PnkBstrB and for each one…
    3. Right click on it and select its Properties
    4. Under the Log On tab tick the box Allow service to interact with desktop and click OK.
    5. Try your game again

By this point the game should be running and all should be well.  It certainly worked for myself and my friends and I hope it works for you too.  Please feel free to leave feedback here to let me know