• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EST 01:06
CET 07:06
KST 15:06
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
RSL Season 3 - Playoffs Preview0RSL Season 3 - RO16 Groups C & D Preview0RSL Season 3 - RO16 Groups A & B Preview2TL.net Map Contest #21: Winners12Intel X Team Liquid Seoul event: Showmatches and Meet the Pros10
Community News
Weekly Cups (Dec 1-7): Clem doubles, Solar gets over the hump0Weekly Cups (Nov 24-30): MaxPax, Clem, herO win2BGE Stara Zagora 2026 announced15[BSL21] Ro.16 Group Stage (C->B->A->D)4Weekly Cups (Nov 17-23): Solar, MaxPax, Clem win3
StarCraft 2
General
Weekly Cups (Dec 1-7): Clem doubles, Solar gets over the hump Chinese SC2 server to reopen; live all-star event in Hangzhou Maestros of the Game: Live Finals Preview (RO4) BGE Stara Zagora 2026 announced Weekly Cups (Nov 24-30): MaxPax, Clem, herO win
Tourneys
StarCraft2.fi 15th Anniversary Cup Tenacious Turtle Tussle Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament RSL Offline Finals Info - Dec 13 and 14! StarCraft Evolution League (SC Evo Biweekly)
Strategy
Custom Maps
Map Editor closed ?
External Content
Mutation # 503 Fowl Play Mutation # 502 Negative Reinforcement Mutation # 501 Price of Progress Mutation # 500 Fright night
Brood War
General
BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ BW General Discussion Foreign Brood War Data analysis on 70 million replays MBCGame Torrents
Tourneys
[Megathread] Daily Proleagues Small VOD Thread 2.0 [BSL21] RO16 Group D - Sunday 21:00 CET [BSL21] RO16 Group A - Saturday 21:00 CET
Strategy
Current Meta Game Theory for Starcraft How to stay on top of macro? PvZ map balance
Other Games
General Games
Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Nintendo Switch Thread Path of Exile ZeroSpace Megathread The Perfect Game
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
Mafia Game Mode Feedback/Ideas TL Mafia Community Thread
Community
General
European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine US Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread The Big Programming Thread
Fan Clubs
White-Ra Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
Anime Discussion Thread [Manga] One Piece Movie Discussion!
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread Formula 1 Discussion
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
TL+ Announced Where to ask questions and add stream? The Automated Ban List
Blogs
I decided to write a webnov…
DjKniteX
Physical Exertion During Gam…
TrAiDoS
James Bond movies ranking - pa…
Topin
Thanks for the RSL
Hildegard
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 1745 users

How do I run 2 instances of SC2?

Forum Index > SC2 General
Post a Reply
1 2 Next All
TheBalanceIssue
Profile Joined June 2015
Singapore41 Posts
September 04 2015 08:23 GMT
#1
I made an Arcade game, and I want to test it out with 2 players, and I wish to see how it's like from each of their perspectives. To do this, I want to run 2 instances of SC2, one of them logged in with a free Starter edition account and the other logged in to my actual account, then test out the Arcade game.

Is this possible? I've already tried Sandboxie but it doesn't seem to work (it takes forever to load, sometimes there is an error message).
WhiteLuminous
Profile Joined July 2015
43 Posts
September 04 2015 08:26 GMT
#2
I haven't tried this myself, but you might need to run a virtual machine, like maybe VirtualBox. You'd probably need a really good computer to have anything near responsive through the virtual machine though.
Big J
Profile Joined March 2011
Austria16289 Posts
September 04 2015 08:44 GMT
#3
Ah, the good old problem when you are too good for anybody else to train with and want to play with yourself.
Tufas
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Austria2259 Posts
September 04 2015 08:46 GMT
#4
On September 04 2015 17:44 Big J wrote:
Ah, the good old problem when you are too good for anybody else to train with and want to play with yourself.



I mean judging by his name, he just wants it to be balanced ..
Where is my ACE flair
varsovie
Profile Joined December 2013
Canada326 Posts
September 04 2015 08:51 GMT
#5
If you were on Linux you only have to "chroot" or "jail" the SC2 process (or via more advanced implantations like https://igurublog.wordpress.com/downloads/script-sandfox/ ). As I know those envirronemental virtualisation aren't availlable on Window but there's solutions that provide chroot-like feature on Windows
http://www.airesoft.co.uk/chroot http://www.winquota.com/wj/ http://www.sandboxie.com/ or if you like hacking you can make your own chroot https://github.com/bmatzelle/gow
The chroot has the advantage that you don't have to duplicate the SC2 files (more than 10Gb...)

Or you should try an application-level full virtualization (virtual OS) with an application like VMware Virtual box or KVM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_platform_virtualization_software
Microsoft has its own visualization tools for that, but I never tried 'em https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hh826068

And at last the NTFS file systems does allow fine grained access policy, it would be possible to create multiple SC2 install owned by a specific user then run 'em all, but since they would share the same IP I don't know if it would work.

And if you do not manage to make it work, I'm sure some good people here wouldn't mind setting a skype chat with you and try your game or stream it.
NekronautSC1
Profile Joined August 2015
2 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-09-04 09:32:30
September 04 2015 09:24 GMT
#6
Why so complicated?
Just Start SC via launcher, log out so youre in the old login screen again there log in with the starter account and then launch sc2 again with your new one.
Another way would be to enable two instances in the bnet launcher settings. start two launchers. have one logged into your main and one into your starter set and simply start sc2 in each launcher
.

set both to windowed and if you have 2 screens youre good to go, otherwise just split screen both in windowed.

keep it simple.

NeThZOR
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
South Africa7387 Posts
September 04 2015 09:38 GMT
#7
On September 04 2015 18:24 NekronautSC1 wrote:
Why so complicated?
Just Start SC via launcher, log out so youre in the old login screen again there log in with the starter account and then launch sc2 again with your new one.
Another way would be to enable two instances in the bnet launcher settings. start two launchers. have one logged into your main and one into your starter set and simply start sc2 in each launcher
.

set both to windowed and if you have 2 screens youre good to go, otherwise just split screen both in windowed.

keep it simple.


Not sure whether the first method you mentioned will work
SuperNova - 2015 | SKT1 fan for years | Dear, FlaSh, PartinG, Soulkey, Naniwa
TheBalanceIssue
Profile Joined June 2015
Singapore41 Posts
September 04 2015 09:42 GMT
#8
On September 04 2015 18:24 NekronautSC1 wrote:
Why so complicated?
Just Start SC via launcher, log out so youre in the old login screen again there log in with the starter account and then launch sc2 again with your new one.
Another way would be to enable two instances in the bnet launcher settings. start two launchers. have one logged into your main and one into your starter set and simply start sc2 in each launcher
.

set both to windowed and if you have 2 screens youre good to go, otherwise just split screen both in windowed.

keep it simple.



I wish it was that simple... just tried both methods, both didn't work.
NekronautSC1
Profile Joined August 2015
2 Posts
September 04 2015 09:45 GMT
#9
Is it two different emails or is it the same email the accounts are registered to?
AdviceGuy
Profile Joined September 2015
2 Posts
September 04 2015 09:56 GMT
#10
I know of a solution to this issue regarding the Windows OS.

From my understanding, in order to pull this off, it's going to require two computers and a pro version of the Windows OS.

Install one instance of SC on computer one and the second instance of SC on computer two.

Access the Remote Desktop Application using the search bar in the windows OS. Log in using the necessary log-in credentials (this will open a window of Computer two on Computer one's monitor).

If you want to watch both computers simultaneously, you will need to add an additional monitor then expand the remote desktop window on it.
TheBalanceIssue
Profile Joined June 2015
Singapore41 Posts
September 04 2015 10:22 GMT
#11
On September 04 2015 18:45 NekronautSC1 wrote:
Is it two different emails or is it the same email the accounts are registered to?


Two different emails. 2 instances of StarCraft don't even successfully launch.
TheBalanceIssue
Profile Joined June 2015
Singapore41 Posts
September 04 2015 10:22 GMT
#12
On September 04 2015 18:56 AdviceGuy wrote:
I know of a solution to this issue regarding the Windows OS.

From my understanding, in order to pull this off, it's going to require two computers and a pro version of the Windows OS.

Install one instance of SC on computer one and the second instance of SC on computer two.

Access the Remote Desktop Application using the search bar in the windows OS. Log in using the necessary log-in credentials (this will open a window of Computer two on Computer one's monitor).

If you want to watch both computers simultaneously, you will need to add an additional monitor then expand the remote desktop window on it.


I only wish to use one computer though
AdviceGuy
Profile Joined September 2015
2 Posts
September 04 2015 10:27 GMT
#13
On September 04 2015 19:22 TheBalanceIssue wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 04 2015 18:56 AdviceGuy wrote:
I know of a solution to this issue regarding the Windows OS.

From my understanding, in order to pull this off, it's going to require two computers and a pro version of the Windows OS.

Install one instance of SC on computer one and the second instance of SC on computer two.

Access the Remote Desktop Application using the search bar in the windows OS. Log in using the necessary log-in credentials (this will open a window of Computer two on Computer one's monitor).

If you want to watch both computers simultaneously, you will need to add an additional monitor then expand the remote desktop window on it.


I only wish to use one computer though



Not sure if this will work, but it seems logical. Create two separate windows accounts. Log into StarCraft on both accounts and input the necessary credentials. Lock the second account, but leave the instance of SC running. Access remote desktop and remote into the second account. In theory, this should give you the ability to navigate both accounts from a single screen.
Ventil
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
Sweden414 Posts
September 04 2015 11:05 GMT
#14
Tried launching sc2 with ctrl+shift ?
Built in feature in Windows 7 and upward. Not sure of SC2 can do it because the actual sc2.exe is called from the launcher. Don't have a machine with SC2 installed close to me so I can't verify.
Twitter: @VeNtiLSC
todespolka
Profile Joined November 2012
221 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-09-04 11:39:54
September 04 2015 11:28 GMT
#15
Oh i did these kind of things for 10 years ago.

U have to understand first how sc2 works. How does it see that sc2 is already running? There are multiple ways, it can check window class, window name or process name. There are other ways but i dont believe blizzard would go so far. Its not a security issiue they just want to prevent ordinary people from starting multiple sc2 clients.

If its like that, u can just change process name of sc2 and start a second one. Bw for example checked the window name to see if its already running.

EDIT: I am looking right now if there is a way to change process names.
EDIT2: Wow there are so many creative ways, I am really surprised. Just give "change process name" into google and u will get very easy solutions. I hope it works! Have fun!
NeThZOR
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
South Africa7387 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-09-04 11:46:51
September 04 2015 11:45 GMT
#16
On September 04 2015 20:28 todespolka wrote:
Oh i did these kind of things for 10 years ago.

U have to understand first how sc2 works. How does it see that sc2 is already running? There are multiple ways, it can check window class, window name or process name. There are other ways but i dont believe blizzard would go so far. Its not a security issiue they just want to prevent ordinary people from starting multiple sc2 clients.

If its like that, u can just change process name of sc2 and start a second one. Bw for example checked the window name to see if its already running.

EDIT: I am looking right now if there is a way to change process names.
EDIT2: Wow there are so many creative ways, I am really surprised. Just give "change process name" into google and u will get very easy solutions. I hope it works! Have fun!

This is starting to sound like a good solution. Can someone try this? Not near a pc with SC2 on it right now
SuperNova - 2015 | SKT1 fan for years | Dear, FlaSh, PartinG, Soulkey, Naniwa
loko822
Profile Joined January 2015
54 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-09-04 12:21:20
September 04 2015 12:20 GMT
#17
one guy already gave you the answer. I used sandboxie to do exactly what you want to do. Its really easy. You just open it once normal as always and once in the sandbox.

edit: sry didnt see you tried that and didnt work, strange. For me it did ~a year ago.
SC2 Highlights 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEllpcWAzPo // Neeb Herovideo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7r0pwyZWMo
varsovie
Profile Joined December 2013
Canada326 Posts
September 04 2015 14:44 GMT
#18
On September 04 2015 21:20 loko822 wrote:
one guy already gave you the answer. I used sandboxie to do exactly what you want to do. Its really easy. You just open it once normal as always and once in the sandbox.

edit: sry didnt see you tried that and didnt work, strange. For me it did ~a year ago.


Yeah but I tried to give more than one option. :D Chrooting the processus or virtualizing another OS seems the only viable solution other than hacking the .exe to avoid the ID check or using the "russian/chinese local version".
I've just tried under Linux and it works well, so Windows solutions (sandboxie seems popular and non-TOS sources seems to indicate it works) should work well although you may need to copy (reinstall?) SC2 in the sandboxed environment.
I'm not sure about the "ctrl+shift+rightclick --> run as different user", might worth a try.

Renaming the .exe wont work because SC2 launches via staggered scripts and with "agent.exe".
TheBalanceIssue
Profile Joined June 2015
Singapore41 Posts
September 05 2015 00:33 GMT
#19
On September 04 2015 23:44 varsovie wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 04 2015 21:20 loko822 wrote:
one guy already gave you the answer. I used sandboxie to do exactly what you want to do. Its really easy. You just open it once normal as always and once in the sandbox.

edit: sry didnt see you tried that and didnt work, strange. For me it did ~a year ago.


Yeah but I tried to give more than one option. :D Chrooting the processus or virtualizing another OS seems the only viable solution other than hacking the .exe to avoid the ID check or using the "russian/chinese local version".
I've just tried under Linux and it works well, so Windows solutions (sandboxie seems popular and non-TOS sources seems to indicate it works) should work well although you may need to copy (reinstall?) SC2 in the sandboxed environment.
I'm not sure about the "ctrl+shift+rightclick --> run as different user", might worth a try.

Renaming the .exe wont work because SC2 launches via staggered scripts and with "agent.exe".


This happens when I use Sandboxie:

[image loading]

It will just be stuck there forever.

The "Ctrl+Shift+Rightclick --> Run as different user" doesn't work (unfortunately).
xpaperclip
Profile Joined January 2011
Australia995 Posts
September 05 2015 03:55 GMT
#20
The following worked for me. I logged in one with my actual account and another on a starter account and played a game with myself.

1. Open first instance of SC2.

2. Using Process Explorer, go to the sc2.exe process and force close four handles (View -> Show Lower Pane, find it in the list, right click -> Close Handle) with "StarCraft II" in the name:
Events
- \Sessions\1\BaseNamedObjects\StarCraft II Game Application
- \BaseNamedObjects\StarCraft II Game Application (Global)
Sections
- \Sessions\1\BaseNamedObjects\StarCraft II
- \Sessions\1\BaseNamedObjects\StarCraft II IPC Mem
(I don't know which one it actually uses to tell another instance is running so I just did all of them.)

3. Start new instance of SC2.
1 2 Next All
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Next event in 5h 54m
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
WinterStarcraft577
RuFF_SC2 174
SortOf 66
StarCraft: Brood War
Sharp 3240
firebathero 378
Leta 152
910 148
PianO 118
JulyZerg 32
Shine 28
Bale 21
Dota 2
monkeys_forever666
NeuroSwarm156
League of Legends
JimRising 747
C9.Mang0193
Counter-Strike
m0e_tv274
Super Smash Bros
ChuDatz9
Other Games
summit1g10484
Organizations
Other Games
gamesdonequick777
BasetradeTV140
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 15 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• Berry_CruncH58
• practicex 14
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
League of Legends
• Lourlo1116
• Rush1106
Other Games
• Scarra1110
Upcoming Events
WardiTV 2025
5h 54m
StarCraft2.fi
9h 54m
PiGosaur Monday
18h 54m
StarCraft2.fi
1d 10h
Tenacious Turtle Tussle
1d 17h
The PondCast
2 days
WardiTV 2025
2 days
StarCraft2.fi
2 days
WardiTV 2025
3 days
StarCraft2.fi
4 days
[ Show More ]
RSL Revival
4 days
IPSL
4 days
Sziky vs JDConan
RSL Revival
5 days
Classic vs TBD
herO vs Zoun
WardiTV 2025
5 days
IPSL
5 days
Tarson vs DragOn
Wardi Open
6 days
Monday Night Weeklies
6 days
Replay Cast
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Acropolis #4 - TS3
RSL Revival: Season 3
Kuram Kup

Ongoing

IPSL Winter 2025-26
KCM Race Survival 2025 Season 4
YSL S2
BSL Season 21
Slon Tour Season 2
WardiTV 2025
META Madness #9
SL Budapest Major 2025
ESL Impact League Season 8
BLAST Rivals Fall 2025
IEM Chengdu 2025
PGL Masters Bucharest 2025
Thunderpick World Champ.
CS Asia Championships 2025
ESL Pro League S22

Upcoming

BSL 21 Non-Korean Championship
Acropolis #4
IPSL Spring 2026
Bellum Gens Elite Stara Zagora 2026
HSC XXVIII
Big Gabe Cup #3
RSL Offline Finals
PGL Cluj-Napoca 2026
IEM Kraków 2026
BLAST Bounty Winter 2026
BLAST Bounty Winter Qual
eXTREMESLAND 2025
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2025 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.