Warcraft III was unable to initialize. Error 3

Desktop App Tech Support
1

I purchased, downloaded and played Warcraft III a few years ago. It has worked/played fine for that whole time. Yesterday I installed a patch and played a few games, but today I cannot launch WC3 or World Editor from the launcher icons.

I did some reading on these forums and found a semi-solution that may explain what’s wrong: when I right-click “Warcraft III Launcher.exe” and select Run As Administrator Warcraft III can be launched but there is no way to launch the World Editor and the actual “Warcraft III.exe” still gives the error

Warcraft III was unable to initialize. Error 3

when I try to launch the game from the regular “Warcraft III.exe” icon. The error shown when I try to launch World Editor is

Unable to Open “War3.mpq”.

Any idea what the problem is or how to fix it so that I can both play the game and edit maps?

2

Hey, MyLife4Aiur!

Please try reinstalling the game completely to see if it resolves the error. It is possible this is related to your CD keys, and reinstalling using the CD keys from the website may resolve the issue.

3

thank you @Ibraius, that fixed it!

4

I previously registered my WC3 CD Keys on the blizzard website and was able to download RoC and Frozen Throne.
I have a new computer, and attempted the same–however, I am only able to download Reforged. is there any way to get a blizzard supported WC3 Classic? I am not able to locate my CD’s / Keys.

Thanks

5

Or, is there a way to look into my ‘authorization’ and get my CD keys from reverse, so that I can enter them into a downloaded app? ty

Edited by Blizzard - this topic is being locked as the issue was resolved for the original poster. Please create your own thread or contact support.