ok, im tired of guessing.....i figured out eventually that the extension needed to say -mod mwll not -mods mwll, thats why it was launching the regular crysis exe, fixed that and i get the same result as if i launch the mwll launcher, i just never get the Alpha Launcher screen, just a black screen....tried all the various compatibility modes for other operating systems (I am on Windows 7 x64, but Crysis x86 runs fine on here), tried giving administrator access to the exe, all things i dont have to do in order to get Crysis itself running, it works fine.....guess i will go do something else and come back in a day or two when things are more sorted out.....thanks