I have been an IT professional for over 20 years and trust me when I say that if I could get my hands around the necks of some of the A-Holes that write malicious software, I wouldn't be writing this right now because I would be in Jail.

I am the owner of 3 HL2DM servers, and have been active in the community for over 4 years. People who I consider to be in my "friends" circle are some of the most productive people in the HL2 world.

QuickSilver, Mick from the Sanctuary UK, Loki, Walking Target (HL2 University), Valor to name a few. In the installation I clearly state my e-mail address (MiSheps@MiShepsBasement.com) and welcome any feedback, comments, suggestions, etc. I have worked too hard to build a positive name for myself in the HL2 community to ruin it with junk software.

But, as I said, I completely understand, and appreciate your caution. There are a lot of people out there who aren't as good willed as I am.

I wrote the application in VB6 and have fully tested it on Vista, and XP.

Basically all it does is the following:

1) uses PSKill to end the HL2 process (if Half Life 2 is running, it automatically closes it and steam) It does this so that it can safely copy the crosshair file to the correct location. PSKill is the only tool that I'm using that I didn't develop. PSKill is a microsoft utility which can be found in the PSTools microsoft pack. (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/PsTools.mspx)

2) After it closes HL2 and steam it opens the application and gives you the choices of which crosshair and color to use.

3) As soon as you open the applicaton, you should hear a verbal explinaton of what the applicaton is going to do. (That is me speaking - This is the only part I don't like! lol I hate hearing myself).

3) When You have selected a crosshair and a color, and click install the application searches your hard drive for your half life 2 installation. It has to do it this way because as everyone here is aware, all HL2 installations are unique based on the persons username. This is why I have to do a full hard drive search. The file that I'm looking for in the search is HL2.exe and once it is found, I'm performing a second search to a sub directory of that "hl2dm\cfg" and searching for the a file in there. (this double search ansures that I am in the correct HL2 deathmatch install location). The reason that I chose to make the drive search visable is because I want the user to see exactly what the application is doing. I'm hiding nothing.

4) once it finds the install directory, it removes the existing crosshair file, and color scheme file and replaces them with what you have chosen.

5) It then sets both of those files to read only (which is needed so they aren't overwritten by HL2.

That is it in a nutshell.

I would encourage anyone who has used the application to post your feedback here so that others can see that nothing malicious was done.

I would also encourage anyone who has any questions or would like to speak with me directly to visit our website:

Http://www.MiShepsBasement.com

Or e-mail me at MiSheps@MiShepsBasement.com

My name is Jeremy, my game name is [GoTg] MiSheps - I am the clan leader of [GoTg] (Guardians of The gates). For anyone who knows any GoTg member, you know we represent some of the best attitudes and personalities in the HL2 dm community. We are all about character and good nature.

Welp, thats it, all I can do is give you my word and assurance. If you choose to use the tool, I hope you enjoy it and will help encourage others by letting them know it is safe. EXE's always make people nervous and only time will prove that this is a safe tool.