All About the Background Downloader
by Elizabeth Harper 
May 31st 2006 at 8:35PM
If you happened to attempt to multi-task while playing Warcraft today, you may have noticed the Blizzard Background Downloader running, downloading a file with an unusually generic name of "wow-patch." So was some kind of patch released today? Well... no. However, there's an official post explaining exactly what is happening here. Before the background downloader was implemented, on patch day millions of people would be attempting to grab the patch at the same time - and my experience with this has been entirely negative. With the background downloader, whenever you log on to play, you'll be checking for updated files and start downloading them (very slowly - as to not interrupt your play-time). So as Blizzard finalizes parts of the next patch, the downloader is already grabbing them, which means that come patch day, you should already have most of the patch, making getting patched up quick and painless. I guess we'll wait and see how well it works in the end...!Filed under: Patches
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
obo May 31st 2006 10:49PM
The problem with this is that ZoneAlert hates the background downloader and bluescreens my system when it loads if I start WoW with my firewall running. Not Blizz's fault, but I wish I had the option to turn the damn background downloader off. I always end up torrenting or downloading my patches off Filefront or some other mirror anyway - between my hardware and software firewalls, the unconfigurable Blizz DLer never works well.
obo May 31st 2006 10:52PM
Hehe... ok, I should read the links instead of just the WoW Insider post, which didn't mention that the forum link also says how to disable the DLer. Unannounced background bandwidth-leeching apps breaking on my firewall FTL.
Mr. Tibbs May 31st 2006 11:45PM
Ah thank you, I was curious about that. I use multiple monitors, so I play in a maximized window (on the left monitor) and drag the taskbar to the right monitor so that I can open internet windows and whatnot. That's when I noticed the little Blizzard Downloader icon in the bottom right.
boneyard Jun 1st 2006 5:15AM
wasn't this announced weeks ago already?
Mike Jun 1st 2006 9:26AM
I hate the background downloader! Panda's internet security always detects it as trying to connect to the internet whenever I start WoW, which isn't a huge deal because it's running in the background. But when I close WoW, the notification is still there and when I click to "Allow" or "Deny" the connection, it crashes the computer. Stupid Background Downloader.
Penguintine Jun 1st 2006 12:09PM
The backround DLer sucked! I couldn't figure out why my WOW was lagging so badly. I'd rather wait a few minutes to get the patch than ruin my whole WOW experience.