Bypass the Plutonium Launcher and have play time recorded in Steam

[WirenthReylar]

Brief overview:

When playing a game through Plutonium, the game will not record playtime alongside the playtime for the game in your Steam Library.
This setup will allow you to record playtime as the original game in Steam when playing through Plutonium without navigating through the Plutonium Launcher.

• Note there is another method that will boot you into the Launcher each time, and a different script that can be used utilising Plutonium's URIs, but we are focusing on this method to bypass the launcher and allow LAN play (where the URIs only support online play to my knowledge).

Disclaimer:

This may bypass the Plutonium updater, it is your responsibility to keep your game up to date, so you will need to launch the Plutonium launcher periodically.
If playing Black Ops 1 LAN and using Pluto-Compatibility-Fix, then that will take care of the updates for you.

Normal Setup

1. Navigate to your Steam Game install folder. The easiest way to do this is open Steam, right click the game, go to Manage > Browse Local Files
2. Right click in the folder and go to New > Text Document, and rename it to something like BlackOps.bat, making sure to remove the .txt, it should look like this:
   
3. Once created, right click it and click "Edit". This should open a blank text document.
4. In the Text document, add the following, making sure to replace "YOUR NAME" with your own name, updating the game path to your Steam install, and changing t5sp to the appropriate game as necessary:

@ echo off
cd %LocalAppData%\Plutonium\bin
ren BlackOps.exe plutonium-bootstrapper-win32.exe
rem The first two lines correct the file name if altered by pluto-fix.exe, do not modify
cd %LocalAppdata%\Plutonium\
.\bin\plutonium-bootstrapper-win32.exe t5sp "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Call of Duty Black Ops" +name "WirenthReylar" -lan

• Other game codes to replace t5sp with are:
  iw5mp - Modern Warfare 3 Multiplayer
  iw5sp - Modern Warfare 3 Single Player
  t4mp - World at War Multiplayer
  t4sp - World at War Single Player
  t5mp - Black Ops 1 Multiplayer
  t5sp - Black Ops 1 Single Player
  t6mp - Black Ops 2 Multiplayer
  t6zm - Black Ops 2 Zombies
• You can also remove -lan to play online
• This should look similar to the below:
  

5. Save that file
6. Next you'll want to open Steam, right click the game you have set this up for and go to Properties
7. From there, we will add a launch option to have Steam redirect to the batch file we've created, so for me this would be:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Call of Duty Black Ops\BlackOps.bat" %command%

• You will need to make sure that the path and file name matches what you have created, and where you have created it

8. After that, you can close everything we've done, hit play on Steam, a command prompt will open for plutonium, leave it open, and it will show that you are playing the game on Steam, recording your hours.

Pluto-Compatibility-Fix Setup

If, like me, you run Evelyn's Pluto Compatibility Fix program for Black Ops 1, you will need to do this slightly differently, but not massively so.

1. The first thing you will need to do is identify where your pluto-fix.exe is stored and make a note of it.
   For me this is C:\Users\wiren\Documents\Zombies stuff\pluto-fix.exe
2. Next, navigate to your Steam install folder for the game, right click in the folder, go to New > Text Document, and rename it to something like PlutoFix.bat, making sure to remove the .txt, it should look like this:
   
3. Once created, right click it and click "Edit". This should open a blank text document.
4. In the Text document, add the following, making sure you use the path for your pluto-fix.exe:

@ echo off
cd "C:\Users\wiren\Documents\Zombies stuff"
pluto-fix.exe
pause

• It should look like the below:
  

5. Save that file
6. Next you'll want to open Steam, right click the game you have set this up for and go to Properties
7. From there, we will add a launch option to have Steam redirect to the last batch file we've created, so for me this would be:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Call of Duty Black Ops\PlutoFix.bat" %command%

• You will need to make sure that the path and file name matches what you have created, and where you have created it

8. After that, you can close everything we've done, hit play on Steam, two command prompts will open, one for tracking hours, one for plutonium, leave both open, and it will show that you are playing the game on Steam, recording your hours.

• Note you will always have a command prompt open saying to press any key, completing that command will close it, and stop Steam from tracking your hours, so only do that once you have finished playing.
• Additional note, this can't be launched with the pluto-fix.exe directly, stopping the annoying command prompt, as that exe closes when Black Ops opens, leaving nothing for Steam to track. It is the press any key command prompt that is being tracked for the Steam hours.

Common Issues

Only Black Ops 1 launches, other games fail

Typically this issue is one that happens when using the Pluto-Compatibility-Fix.
The reason for this, is that it renames one of the core Plutonium files to provide the BO1 compatibility with old tools.
You can check if this has happened by pressing Win + R and entering %LocalAppData%/Plutonium/bin, then looking for plutonium-bootstrapper-win32.exe. If you instead see BlackOps.exe, then this is the issue.

• The easiest way to resolve this is by running the Plutonium Installer. This will correct the file names without not overwriting any configs and preferences you already have set up. Running the normal Plutonium Launcher will not fix it, it has to be the Installer (as downloaded from the Plutonium install docs, but a saved copy of the installer will work).
• You could instead rename the file back to plutonium-bootstrapper-win32.exe. Doing so won't cause any issues, but it may be easier to run the Plutonium Installer again rather than renaming it each time.
• This also shouldn't be an issue if you are using a similar script for other Plutonium games, as the script does take the filename into account and amends it.

• It is also worth noting that this will be renamed every time you use the Pluto-Compatibility-Fix, so if you are running it, this is important to be aware of for next time you switch games.

If you have any issues I've not listed, feel free to let me know and I can add them here for others to view in future

[ChosenUndead]

WirenthReylar
Good post, but an easy way to do it is this:

[WirenthReylar]

ChosenUndead Oh wow. I tried this wrongly before using plutonium-launcher-win32.exe, I wonder why that didn't work lol
This way could still be useful for those that want to bypass the launcher, but I'll be sure to update the guide to reflect that

[ChosenUndead]

WirenthReylar
You don't bypass the launcher with what I have shared

[WirenthReylar]

ChosenUndead Yes, sorry if I was unclear, I meant that they way I had written is still useful for those that want to bypass the launcher. The way you've given is more useful for those that want the launcher after hitting Play in Steam