How to Update Omen (and Other Ace Mods) Like a Pro

I would imagine I am probably not alone in having guildmates that have troubles keeping their Omen up to date, especially with the complete rewrite that Antiarc had to do to accommodate the new combat log in Patch 2.4. In fact, every guild that I've been a part of has a decent number of people who just flat out don't update, can't get the Ace Updater configured correctly, or get frustrated by their mods having mismatched libraries on patch day.

Thus this article was born. Herein lies fairly brief instructions for installing the Ace Updater, and installing Omen with disembedded libraries. This will make your Addons folder fairly messy, but I've found it eliminated 99% of my patch day woes when I started doing it and it improves initial load times to boot. I recommend it highly.

1. Make sure you have .NET Framework 2.0 installed before proceeding. You can download it at the Microsoft Update site, under Software, Optional. If you don't see it listed there - even with hidden updates restored - you probably have it installed already.

2. Fire up good old fashioned Internet Explorer:



You can absolutely do this in Firefox if you like, but that would involve adding the FFClickOnce extension that may or may not work in current beta versions of Firefox. It's just simpler to do it in Internet Explorer. Yes, I know it hurts your trendy internet hipster image to use a Microsoft product willingly, but I am sure you will recover.

3. Go to this link. If you're leery of clicking on strange links from strange men, you can get to this page by going to www.wowace.com, clicking on the Ace Updater (WAU) link on the left navigation bar, and then clicking on the Install via Internet Explorer link. You will be taken to a page that looks like this:



Do what the picture says. With a little prompting from you, the Ace Updater will automagically install itself.

4. Once it is done working its magic you can run it from the Start Menu:



5. Once the Ace Updater has loaded, you will want to go to the Edit menu, then click on Preferences:



6. Set the Update Behavior box to look like this:



Press OK when done.

7a. If you already have Omen2 installed you can simply go to the File menu, and press the Update All Installed Addons button. The Ace Updater will perform some magic tricks and you are done. Until Omen2 reaches more stable releases, you will need to update it every day before you raid.

7b. If you do not already have Omen2 installed you will need to first find it in the list of 1300+ addons. Click the checkbox next to Omen 2, then go to the File menu and press the Install/Update Marked Addons button. The Ace Updater will perform some magic tricks and you are done. It probably wouldn't hurt to also press the Update All Installed Addons button afterward if you have any other Ace mods installed, too. Until Omen2 reaches more stable releases, you will need to update it every day before you raid.

It's also recommended that your raid all use the same version, so you may want to set a time for you to all update every night. It'll definitely save you some headaches.



8. Congratulations! You now have Omen2 installed correctly, and with the correct version of its dependencies installed!



Unfortunately, your guildmates have yesterday's version that isn't compatible with yours. Whoops! Maybe you should link them to this article.

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