No Servers Fix - CoD4X - Call of Duty 4 Multiplayer

How to fix no (or few) multiplayer servers showing.

Why there are no or few multiplayer servers

On April 27th, 2018 the Steam distribution of Call of Duty 4 was updated, changing the games executable from version 1.7.568 to 1.6.13620. While this was technically a downgrade, this was a new 1.6 revision making it incompatible with any remaining 1.6 servers, and certainly not 1.7 servers. Making things immensely more complicated, Activision pushed another update on May 3rd, 2018. Again changing nothing but the executable, this time to an official 1.8 revision (1.8.13620), not to be confused with the "CoD4X" AKA "1.8" client (see below). Just as before, this update makes the client incompatible with 1.7 servers.

This was done seemingly as a direct response to this Reddit thread where some users seem to have gotten Activisions attention regarding an ancient and well-known exploit. An exploit that doesn't effect the server based Call of Duty 4 (PC)... Whatever else may have been done to the executable is unknown at the time of writing. Not that it particularly matters. The Steam install base represents an incredibly small fraction of the player-base, and with that being the case 1.7 is going nowhere.

Fix:
The fix is relatively simple. Download the original 1.7 .exe and use it to replace the iw3mp.exe in your install folder. Unfortunately Steam has removed the ability to completely stop a game from receiving updates. However, CoD4 doesn't require Steam to play, so you can simply move the "Call of Duty 4" folder out of Steam's directory and put it literally anywhere else. If you don't want to do this, at least make a backup of the folder, or at the very least the 1.7 executable as there's nothing at all stopping another "patch" from doing this all over again.

Download:
mediafire .com/file/s94q4s65iglmu4k/iw3mp.exe/

If the link doesn't work, just search for the official 1.7 patch on ModDB or something.

CoD4X

If you use or have used the CoD4 client modification called CoD4X (CoD4 "1.8" and higher) I recommend in the strongest possible terms completely deleting your CoD4 install and re-installing from a clean source such as Steam.

The CoD4X client is a privately made, closed-source client which is forced onto your computer when you connect to any CoD4 server running the server version "1.8" and higher. If you're prompted to "Auto-Update" it means you've already been compromised. While there are a lot of pros to the client, it's dangerously invasive. It gives the creator full access to your computer, your files, programs, all of it.

They've spread their modified client via unwitting servers like malware, putting themselves in a position of immense power. After their software reached a saturation point they were happy with, they started forcing updates. Now they even filter out servers not running their software from showing in the server-list of their modified client.

I could go on, but that's the gist. Good concept, with very shady execution. While I can only recommend that you don't use it, a good rule of thumb is to treat your computer like your butt, never give strangers backdoor access.