Designed for the now defunct h2m-mod for Call of Duty Modern Warfare Remastered. This repo is unaffiliated with the team, nor does it contain or aid in the distribution of any files involved with the project. It is meant to validate the authenticity the mod binaries out in the wild that were leaked before the team disbanded and stopped working on the project in order to help prevent people from just downloading and running malware trying to play the game/connect to malicious servers.
This is an unsigned executable that reaches out to external servers (github for update checking, iw4.zip for server listings), so an antivirus will probably warn you or quarantine it or something. That tends to happen. You can either allow it through or look over my spaghetti code and compile it yourself (which the .bat lets you do pretty easily if you know basic python).
Also, just because your build of the game is clean doesn't necessarily mean you're 100% safe. Some packages containing the files are known to have additional .msi or .exe files that present themselves as installers for a "launcher". This launcher no longer exists, as the team is no longer continuing the project and their distribution channels have been shut down. The launcher itself is unnecessary for a client to run the mod as it is, and any of them that are packed in with the client-side mod files should be treated as, at best, useless or, at worst, malware (as well as any similar executables beyond h2m-mod.exe, which this project is meant to validate). Server guys, you're on your own with that.
- Go the the releases tab
- Download the latest release (the .exe, not any of the zips)
- Drop it in whatever folder you have your h2m-mod.exe files
- Make a shortcut of it that you can put on your desktop if you want
- You are done
Run it instead of the h2m-mod.exe if you always want your servers updated.
The H2M.exe tool reaches out to github to make sure it's the latest version of itself, then validates the hash of your binary.
SAFE: You have the last offical binary that was given to early access participants, this should end in (e33e) and if you're on it you have nothing to worry about at least in terms of your binary
OLDER: You have the build from before the final day of the early access that was a part of the first leak, this should end in (e127) and isn't malicious as far as I know; just outdated (see
UNKNOWN: You have some random build that someone from a discord server probably told you has a server browser modded into it. This could contain literally anything and you probably shouldn't run it. This tool fetches servers on startup and completely side steps the need for any modification to the binary to achieve this. Delete whatever you have and use this instead unless you REALLY trust whoever made it and gave it to you.
The tool then fetches the latest server list available at master.iw4.zip and writes them to the favorites.json located in your player folder that can be viewed in the client by clicking "Filter Servers" to set your source to "Favorites". If you're seeing 0 Players and 0 Servers online with your source set to "Internet", good, you're not supposed to.
Upon finishing these two tasks, the tool will run your h2m-mod.exe as normal and close itself. It doesn't need to install anything, run in the background, or act as a replacement for/interact with any game files in any way (meaning if anything breaks after it closes itself, that's on whatever you've got going on). I'll repeat that a little louder for anyone just skimming this,
ANY ERRORS/ISSUES YOU EXPERIENCE AFTER YOUR GAME STARTS ARE IN THE GAME ITSELF, NOT THIS TOOL. THIS INCLUDES THE SERVER BROWSER.
While the releases are binaries that have been precompiled so they require no outside installs and can be ran on any machine with no technical knowledge required, this is still an open source project. If you don't trust the precompiled binaries, I added a .bat file that will let you easily clone the repo and compile it yourself to make sure the code you're seeing is the code that's running on your machine (you'll obviously need to install python as well as any dependancies yourself). If you're on Linux (I saw you, Steamdeck users) and managed to get h2m working, I trust that you probably know how to run a python script and don't need anything compiled at all.
- Turns out the server browser has neat quirk where, if you go too long without refreshing, the server list will update the back-end but not the front-end to reflect it (even when complying with the 100 server cap), decoupling what you think you're clicking on from what the game thinks you're clicking on. This is why people are getting into different servers than the one they clicked if they don't refresh often enough. Gonna work on having a companion GUI built into this tool that shows real-time server information and you can one click copy/paste IPs directly into your console to connect/sort by category of server (trickshotting/sniping/custom modes/vanilla/etc.) as well as maybe some other useful features that will be good enough until I can justify publishing a modified binary. Until then, don't stay on the server list for too long without refreshing it and you'll be fine.
No, this tool is for validation and easy access to a "functioning" server list without modifying any original binaries. This repo contains no copyrighted assets and is purely code written by its contributor(s).
Probably not. I would much rather be able to continue helping people without risking getting any of my stuff suspended or getting a C&D of my own and being legally prevented from doing so (especially with the reason the h2m-mod team cited for the C&D being the upcoming release of BO6, I'm at least not gonna market myself as a source for them). I have only directly given out mod files to my fellow early access gamers or to the people helping me with security research.
That said, you can probably find that exact stuff floating around somewhere. It's a 2.2-2.4gb zip with no maps included, contains "h2m-mod.exe", "h1_mp64_ship.exe", and the "h2m-mod" folder; that's it. Might even have my name in the game logs from when I was playing during early access, hash ends in e33e, check the hashes before running any executable. Game files you'll need to get elsewhere, preferably legally.
No, you're probably fine. Would get the new one if you can. And I have no idea exactly what features are missing; I wasn't on the H2M team itself, hence why I'm able to talk about it and help people. The mod was recieveing multiple updates throughout the day involving tweaks to game feel (particularly regarding glides, catwalks, and other associated mechanics). I have no way of knowing exactly what was in each individual build, I just happened to catch the latest one before they shut down the update channel to try to suppress leaks. Virustotal/similar AV products are doing behavioral analysis based on what the file does in a vaccuum. Some AV software will even flag game mods in general under the "gamehack" tag. The more it's scanned and flagged as potentially dangerous, the more AV vendors will record the hash of the file in their databases and just flag it for that reason as well. This means absolutely nothing without looking into the behavior of whatever binary you're looking at."h2m-mod.exe", even the clean version, reaches out to an external server that does not exist anymore (master.h2m-mod.dev update server that got shut down), demonware (actvision's in-house online gaming platform), digitcert/various microsoft domains (ex:live.com, msidentitiy.com, msedge.net) to validate signatures and certificates, and discord for the verification clantags (verified users, h2m devs, etc. seems to be done via discord). It also modifies registry keys related to the game.
These are all necessary things the programs would inherently need to do to fulfill their intended purposes and will trigger false positives in behavioral testing as these executables are either unsigned or self-signed meaning they have no inherent trust from any platform.
There is no new "official" team for H2M, just collectives of various random people trying to fill the vacuum that was made after the team disbanded. These are often loosely formed groups scrambling to establish themselves as fast as possible. Some of them are probably legitimately trying to build on the project, some of them also see a free program with no official distribution channel that a ton of people want and will take advantage of that; both are equally likely with any tampered build you download.
The purpose of this tool is to provide the functionality those builds are offering without the need to actually modify the binary itself so no trust in an outside party is required and there's never a question as to what you're actually running. As of right now, there is no reason to use a tampered binary over a clean one with this tool.
I can't speak on any of their builds and there are known examples of infected files going around. Until this whole the stabilizes, I wouldn't recommend running any of them and just asking them for the early access version they built off of. Also won't be adding random builds as trusted hashes since I want no responsibility for anything that might be in them. They'll usually sell you on having a built-in server browser so, if you genuinely trust one of those, you have no reason to be using this tool anyway.