If you are a fan of the Battlefield series of first person shooter (FPS) games from EA Games, there is a good chance you already own a copy of the latest installment, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, commonly called “BFBC2”. If you purchased the game on Valve’s Steam service there is an excellent chance that you are experiencing dropped connections during a game, or being kicked from a game after 20-30 seconds of play.

This is likely due to the Punkbuster service, the much-maligned anti-cheating add-on that aims to make sure players of Battlefield, and a host of many other games, do not hack or cheat while playing.

Fortunately the fix is rather easy. Read on.

First, if you participated in the BFBC@ Beta, you need to delete the folder where this app was installed. Deleting the local game files from within Steam will no fully accomplish this.

1. Go to c:\program files\steam\steamapps\common.
2. Delete the Battlefield Bad Company 2 Beta folder. There is an older copy of Punkbuster installed here.

Next you need to install an up-to-date copy of Punkbuster, and download the update for BFBC2.

1. Go to http://www.punkbuster.com and download PBSetup.zip.
2. Unzip this, and run PBsetup.exe. Once you’re in Punkbuster, click Add a Game.
3. Select Battlefield: Bad Company 2 from the drop-down list.
4. Do not select the Default Path to the game. Since you purchased on Steam, the path is different.
5. Click the Browse button next to the Path field and browse to c:\program files\steam\steamapps\common\battlefield bad company 2.
6. Click Add Game.
7. In the main Punkbuster window, click Check for Updates. The update should install, and you’re ready to roll.

After following this procedure, my dropped games problem disappeared (knock on wood), although I still have trouble connecting to game servers. This is apparently a problem with the Server Browser within the game, or an issue with overloaded servers, or possibly a combination of both issues.

Note, for those of you with 64-bit versions of Windows XP, Vista or 7, your paths above will be c:\program files (x86).

Happy gaming!