Before Proceeding

It's time to pick a stream to continue.
Nostalgic Stream
If you want to play the game in the most classic way, you may continue with the current flow by following the instructions in 4. Installing BF2142 Hub to 10. Hosting Servers. It is also the stream that most of our tutorials on this site focus on.
Straight-Forward Stream
If you want to play a simple game in no time or you don't want to go through all those clumsy steps that follow, you may skip 4. Installing BF2142 Hub to 10. Hosting Servers. Refer to the Using BF2142 Unlocker section for more details on how to create or join a game using the intuitive GUI that comes with Project Remaster.
GetBF2142.net loves nostalgia so we lean towards teaching newcomers the nostalgic way of installing the game, though this stream does take a few more steps to complete when compared to the straightforward setup. But once the installation completes, you will get a fully functional game that can be launched in the most classic way where you can spend your happy moments exploring the old GUI, creating and joining games through it.
However, we do understand the need for making the modding experience simpler so that everyone can enjoy the game in no time. BF2142 Unlocker is exactly designed for that purpose. It actually eliminates the need to install all those patches ourselves. From joining a server, and switching master servers, to hosting a LAN game and finding servers in the server browser, BF2142 Unlocker handles all of that for you. What you only need to do is to launch BF2142 Unlocker and practice using their off-game intuitive GUI to start playing the game of any type.
If you have no idea what stream you should pick, or you're actually new to this game, then it's always better to stick with us (i.e., Nostalgic Stream) since we can provide you with all the detailed steps and info on how to do that.
It's also good to try out the Nostalgic Stream first because you will learn quite a lot about how the classic patching / modding process works out for BF2142 and why we have those steps in place. You will eventually understand BF2142 Unlocker more (i.e., how it integrates all these concepts into one) if you also know these.
Not to mention, you can always switch to using BF2142 Unlocker later on if you really find the classic GUI inconvenient.