TUTORIAL: Turning off ingame Store and preventing loading of pictures

Patch 1.29 extended to the ingame store. Besides the already introduced functionality, the user now sees offers for selected items directly in build/buy and CAS mode. On top of that around 250 MBs worth of pictures is downloaded to your computer without your knowledge.

Luckily there is a way to prevent both from showing without having to close the Internet connection.

Turn off the Ingame-Store

The ingame store can be turned off inside your options. Simply untick the option Enable Shop Mode and it will not further bother you. No offers will show in buy/build or CAS mode.

You can also edit your options.ini to turn if off before you first start the game.

• Open the file [User file directory]\Options.ini with notepad
• Look for the following line: enableingamestore = 1 and change to  enableingamestore = 0
• Save the file
• Start the game.

Unfortunatly, neither of these options prevent that 250 MB worth of pictures are downloaded to your computer.

Prevent pictures from being loaded to your computer
The pictures are being loaded into the folder  [User file directory]\FeaturedItems. Make that folder read-only so the pictures can't be written. If you don't have that folder yet, simply create one.

What to do (Win 7)
Credits for the pictures go to elanorbreton.


Right-click on the folder FeaturedItems and choose Properties

Make sure to choose the user with which you play the game and then click on Edit...

Make sure again, that you've chosen the user you play the game with look for the option Write. Tick the check box for Deny.

Confirm with OK

Now this folder is read-only and EA can't send you anymore pictures. You can delete the ones EA has already sent you.

The ingame store should work as intended, you simply don't have any pictures.

Further Reading

• CRASH: Ingame advertisement