Retarded security feature

TerrorFirmer

I installed a game recently that uses securom 7x....now whenever I try to play virtually anything, even FREE games like Fear combat, it says "Security module cannot be activated" and the game exits. :mad:

edit: It appears to be SS2 and FEAR only, both of which coincidentally I tried to play just there....both are 100% legit copies, but now will not work...

Solutions, please?

TerrorFirmer

Ok never mind, googled it and its a common problem, sonys securom when installed automatically for some reason blacklists FEAR and Serious Sam 2, both of which I own, people are saying there is no solution to it...

so no more fear combat for me...:mad:

**** sake, thought we had enough of this **** with starforce...

Capt'n Midnight

SONY again , did they at least point out that this would be installed on your PC and that it could cause problems and how to removed it ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SecuROM

*shakes fist ineffectually at SONY bemamoth that make good but pricey and propietry hardware but had many dodgy choices on the entertainment side *

TerrorFirmer

It's possible in was in the agreements you have to agree to prior to installation, but it's eh, not often now I scroll through those sort of things when installing a game.

FEAR Combat is a totally free game and as such there are obviously no cracks for it...so it means I simply cannot play it anymore, just because I installed a game I paid for. Not too bothered about SS2 but thats hardly the point. I'd email securom on their website but google shows load of exact same problem, with no satisfactory reply or solution.

there is no way to remove it. I'm sure I could re-install windows like but not way i'm doing that.

Orion

From http://forums.eidosgames.com/archive/index.php/t-49922.html

Hi all!

After some investigation I found a way how to completly remove Securom from my PC. Here is it:
1. stop UAService7 service (CTRL+ALT+DEL, find it and kill it)
2. using e.g. Autoruns (http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Autoruns.html) remove this service and delete the file \windows\system32\UAService7.exe
3. delete the folder Documents and Settings\<your_user_name>\Application Data\SecuROM
4. delete the folder Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\SecuROM; in case of any deletion problems use DelInvFile tool
(http://www.purgeie.com/delinv.htm).
5. delete securom registry keys using regedit
6. key named HKLM\SOFTWARE\SecuROM\!CAUTION! NEVER DELETE OR CHANGE ANY KEY* contains embedded nulls and cannot be removed using regedit; use e.g. RegDelNull tool (http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/RegDelNull.html) instead of it.

That's all. Now you can just ask why your game distributor uses techniques common for viruses and trojan horses. I state that starting from today I will never purchase anything from Sony because of their stupid rootkit practices and will hesitate to buy any legal game in the future, too.

TerrorFirmer

Thanks for that but my main gripes lies in the fact I then could not play the games that need SecuRom...which means its a choice of one or the other :mad:

Orion

Well for me there'd be no choice to be honest. I'd uninstall the game, remove that trojan (for that's what it is) and return it to the manufacturer for my money back. No game is worth that type of meddling with my system afaic