Hello Everyone,


When you need to install or reinstall the entire WoW collection please be advised that each downloaded installer as well as the BC combo DVD and WotLK DVD install all the past data that came before it:

Original WoW installer : Installs Original WoW

Burning Crusade Installer : Installs Original WoW + Burning Crusade

WotLK Installer : Installs Original WoW + Burning Crusade + Wrath of the Lich King


If you downloaded all 3 you basically have installed and reinstalled the original WoW 3 times and BC 2 times. As you can imagine, this will pose issues as data is replaced over and over again.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

If you need to reinstall the game, please follow the steps below to completely delete all the data created by WoW:

In order to remove World of Warcraft safely from your system, please do the following:

1. go to your Macintosh HD => Applications folder (or wherever you saved the game) and move your World of Warcraft to the Trash
2. go to your Macintosh HD => Users => Shared folder and move the Blizzard and Blizzard Entertainment folders to the Trash
3. go to your Macintosh HD => Users => your account => Library => Preferences and delete any files associated with WOW:
(some files may not appear due to non-use)

- com.blizzard.downloader.plist
- com.blizzard.Downloader.prefs
- com.blizzard.errorreporter.plist
- com.blizzard.Installer.plist
- com.blizzard.launcher.plist
- com.blizzard.World of Warcraft.prefs
- com.blizzard.World of Warcraft.survey.prefs

4. empty Trash


To reinstall the game, please do the following (make sure to check your account type):

For Original WoW accounts:

5. Install from disc(s) or download the installer
- (Downloading will get you the 2.3.0 version which may save you some patching time, if your disc has an older version.)
6. patch to the latest version of the game


For Burning Crusade accounts:

5. Install World of Warcraft from disc(s) then right after wards install the Burning Crusade from disc(s) or use the Burning Crusade Combo DVD (thank you Ekho) or download the Burning Crusade installer
6. patch to the latest version of the game


For Wrath of the Lich King accounts:

5. Install the Wrath of the Lich King from the DVD or downloaded installer, which will install the original World of Warcraft, Burning Crusade and the Wrath of the Lich King in one take.
6. patch to the latest version of the game


All installers can be downloaded from your account web site (you will need to log into your account):
http://us.battle.net/account

Hello Bluspacecow,


Lol, couldn't have worded it better myself. Thanks you sir.

I also back up after any large patch, just because an hour or more of downloading the installer is too much time to waste rather than the 15 or so minutes it takes to move a clean version of the WoW Æ’older from an external hard drive.

Hello Snapzoom,


That Æ’older just contains log files, but I'll include that in the uninstall procedure. Thanks for the reminder.

Hello Ithyena,


You're not alone, I get about 10-15 emails a day from people that download all three installers and unfortunately have issues. Hence why I made the post, though I think I should have made it a long time ago, to be honest.

Hello Initialb,


When you took the break and deleted the game, did you also delete all the preference files associated with WoW ? It sounds like the installer is reading instructions from old preference files and that's why things are so screwed up. Make sure you delete the following and try patching:

1. go to your Macintosh HD => Users => Shared folder and move the Blizzard folder to the Trash
2. go to your Macintosh HD => Users => your account => Library => Preferences and delete any files associated with WOW:
(some files may not appear due to non-use)

- com.blizzard.downloader.plist
- com.blizzard.Downloader.prefs
- com.blizzard.errorreporter.plist
- com.blizzard.Installer.plist
- com.blizzard.launcher.plist
- com.blizzard.World of Warcraft.prefs
- com.blizzard.World of Warcraft.survey.prefs

3. empty Trash

Also make sure to read the following:

Install/Reinstall WoW - stop working so hard

Hello Ekho,


Forgot to mention the Combo Burning Crusade disk, thanks for bringing that up.

Hello Kalendae,


If the laptop version works, why not just do a firewire transfer from the laptop to the desktop and replace the World of Warcraft Æ’older on the desktop Mac ?

Hello Liquiddeth,


The only thing you might inadvertently delete is a preference file which will be recreated once the game is restarted so nothing major. Also the latest Beta testing phase is done with so don't worry if the game won't connect right now.