MW3 Downgrade and Update Prevention Guide

SyncHole

I am on linux, however I will be using windows directories as most players are on windows. Folders may look a little funny and properties dialogue will be different as well. Some Common sense will get you past that though.

Press Win+R to open the run dialog
Enter steam://open/console into the box that appears, this will open Steams console
In steams console enter this for the English version of the files, see bottom for instructions for other languages. Enter these one at a time.

download_depot 42682 42682 6067691797475126381
download_depot 42682 42683 6381783964590594065
download_depot 42751 42751 9089183337461621316

These files will likely download to their respective folders in

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\content\app_42682\depot_42682
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\content\app_42682\depot_42683
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\content\app_42751\depot_42751

Copy the contents of each of these folders to your game directory (THE CONTENTS NOT THE FOLDER ITSELF)
After that is complete lock the app manifests by going to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\ right clicking appmanifest_42750.acf if you have the dedicated server, or appmanifest_42680.acf if you have the actual game, opening properties and setting to read only, steam refuses to update if the manifest is locked. This will look slightly different on windows.

~~To my knowledge the DLCs were not updated and wont need redownloaded, I may be wrong. Feel free to correct me.~~
Hadi77KSA informed me that they were, I verified this on SteamDB as well. However, you cannot legally obtain the DLCs with this method without actually owning them.

For languages besides english
Swap out the line

download_depot 42682 42683 6381783964590594065

For the relevent language below.

Spanish

download_depot 42682 42684  2528087911534752870

German

download_depot 42682 42685 3657601166463056212

French

download_depot 42682 42686 7088412265150636376

Italian

download_depot 42682 42687 8273360275068894160

Some of the information here I found from YourPalTaika, I just wanted to provide a more in depth guide since his was a bit lacking in my opinion.
Also, you should really just use 42680 instead of 42682 to download the files, and I was corrected on this, its really just a minor thing and I don't particularly want to take all the screenshots again.

SyncHole

DOWNLOADING DEPOTS HAS NO PROGRESS BAR. IT ALSO TAKES LONGER THAN STANDARD DOWNLOADS. WAIT FOR THE DEPOT DOWNLOAD COMPLETE MESSAGE TO APPEAR BEFORE CONTINUING.

If you get a message stating something about ragdoll.cfg then you either didn't copy all the files over properly or you didn't wait for the downloads to complete.

Salivaboi

Life saver

Delta_1453

This post is deleted!

espresso8031

If anybody runs into some script errors in private mp matches like I did, using different manifests solved it for me

download_depot 42680 42682 2661317971072643596 
download_depot 42680 42683 1595601894688570808 
download_depot 42680 42681 5651167211650965131 
download_depot 42690 42691 4104640605720756125

please remember to clear your plutonium iw5 cache.

All credit goes to discord users Fry and Raine! Hope this helps someone.

blitzou

Life saver as well! Thanks for the detailed tutorial. Now facing the same problem like this ticket to launch on a private game : https://forum.plutonium.pw/topic/46474/anyone-able-to-assist-please

candy2

This post is deleted!

Vipadus

blitzou Check the post by espresso8031 right above yours. I had the exact same error and all I did was uninstall MW3 and Plutonium, then redid the downgrade process except with those depot files.