How to get rid of SecuRom, NOW

[JacquiES]

Something interesting.  I have vista, and two admin accounts.  One for the usual high visual fun stuff and one for the sims 2.  

When I went to look for secuROM, I couldn't find it on the first one, which is odd because that is where I install the games due to the fact that I am mainly on it.  Just for shits and giggles I looked under the sims 2 account today, and there is secuROM in my registry.  For some reason it can't be found in the registry on my main account, but it is in the registry on my sims account.  Thought I was in the clear, now it is time to get that shit off.

[lefty]

Thanks Zazazu, and here's one more. I don't wanna muck about in the registry too much because I'll probably break something, so I'm gonna ask to make double sure

[laylei]

Thanks Zazazu, and here's one more. I don't wanna muck about in the registry too much because I'll probably break something, so I'm gonna ask to make double sure

I have the same thing, which one is it? *knows nothing about registries or anything, but doesn't want SecuRom on her computer, damnit!*

[lemonfresh]

Thanks Zazazu, and here's one more. I don't wanna muck about in the registry too much because I'll probably break something, so I'm gonna ask to make double sure

I have the same thing, which one is it? *knows nothing about registries or anything, but doesn't want SecuRom on her computer, damnit!*

Just the one that does NOT have "classes" appended to the end.

[Li'l Brudder]

Here are the files and steps for winning.

1. Open the run dialog and type "services.msc"
   a. Look for SecuROM.
2. Open the run dialog and type "regedit"
   a. Look for SecuROM under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE...Software
   b. If there are no SecuROM, you can haz no security.
   c. If there are, continue reading to find out how to successfully dismantle your computer remove SecuROM.
3. Download "TrashReg" and derar it.  Run it.  Look for the !DO NOT DELETE! key by going to File...Find Keys with NULL -embedded names...Check ALL boxes.
4. Right click the !DO NOT DELETE! key and delete it.
5. Download and run CureSecuROMeng.  It'll do its thing.
6. Open up RegEdit again and try to find SecuROM.  If it is gone, yey.  If not, you fail at life.

It'll re-add itself every time if you don't have a NoCD crack.  Find one yourself.  They're ALL OVER!

TrashReg
CureSecuROM

[JacquiES]

Question with the creating an image of my disc and running it from there.  This will still work with JM's hacks right?  i am assuming it will but just wanted to check.

[lefty]

Just the one that does NOT have "classes" appended to the end.

Alright thanks a ton, now I'm one more user who is securom free. I followed all the rest of the steps correctly, though I did not have the uaservice7 file (though I did have the cmdlineext one).

[jsalemi]

Question with the creating an image of my disc and running it from there.  This will still work with JM's hacks right?  i am assuming it will but just wanted to check.

Yes, the hacks run with the game; the CD (or image) is only checked to see that you have a legal copy.  But running from an image doesn't solve the SecuROM problem, because it's the .exe that installs it as it checks to see if the valid CD is there.  You have to run with a no-cd .exe to prevent SecuROM from installing again.

[miramis]

I'm a Vista 64bit user and could not find the UAService7 at all, after running through all the other steps though and before rebooting I did see a service belonging to Sony DADC called something like CmdLineEXT_x64 (I forget exactly what it was but it was something very close to that).  After the reboot to finish the removal procedures it was gone.

*edited* I forgot to say thankyou to all who have contributed to this thread, I couldn't have done it without you 

[muridae]

Thanks for starting this thread, Zazazu. It's nice to be able to find the removal information easily. 

By way of thanks I offer up an easier way of deleting the registry keys via regdelnull that doesn't involve typing in that mindbogglingly long computer specific key.

Replace this step from the first post:

* Step 2: Remove the Securom registry entries.
The Securom registry entries are deliberately made non-removable by default. In order to remove them download the http://www.microsoft.com/technet/s [...] lNull.mspx RegDelNull registry editing utility from Microsoft and install it on your C partition. 
Run the following two commands from a Windows command prompt: "C:\regdelnull HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SecuROM -s" and "C:\regdelnull HKEY_USERS\<Computer specific key>\Software\SecuROM -s" where "<Computer specific key>" can be determined by searching the registry for the "Securom" directory key. This "<Computer specific key>" typically has a form like "S-1-5-21-2052111302-1757341266-724545543-500". Once these two RegDelNull commands have been successfully issued the registry should be checked to confirm that these two keys have been deleted. If they are still present they will now be removeable due to the action of the RegDelNull utility.

with this:

Download regdelnull.exe and place it in C:\
Go to "Run" and type in "cmd", then type the following:

cd C:\
regdelnull hkcu -s
regdelnull hku -s
 
The two regdelnull calls above will scan the whole of HKEY_CURRENT_USER (abbreviated to HKCU) and HKEY_USERS (abbreviated to HKU). It's possible you may find other null registry keys during the scans, since you're not targeting *just* the SecuROM keys doing it this way. regdelnull will prompt you with the full pathname of every key it finds though, which will contain the name "SecuROM" if it's one of the ones you're after, so you can check names and only respond "y" to delete those two.

* goes back to lurking again *


Edit to add: If you're the only user on the machine and log in as administrator, you may find that there's not a key to delete under HKEY_USERS once you've done the delete from HKEY_CURRENT_USERS. The HKEY_CURRENT_USERS subkeys are all built from information in HKEY_USERS at the time you boot the PC, so deleting the key there seems to clobber the other one as well. It's probably as well to run the scan for both just to make sure all traces are gone though.

[Ambular]

Apologies if this has already been covered (a quick scan of the thread suggests it has not,) but I installed BV and immediately replaced the .exe with the no-CD version before I ever started the game up, and while I did get an empty SecuROM directory and an !!OMG DO NOT DELETE!! registry key, as far as I can tell SecuROM was never properly activated on my system.  No processes to cancel or files to delete and the game ran without a hitch even before I axed the stuff I did find.  Perhaps this should be the recommended install procedure?

[Zazazu]

It's definitely the recommended install procedure. If you never run it from the original .exe (which is what contains the poison) you can't get SecuRom. Will add notation. For your suggestion and Muridae's.

[mildlydisguised]

I found that I didn't need to do the regdelnull steps after I had used TrashReg and CureSecuROM, although I didn't have any SecuROM entries under HKEY_USERS from the beginning.  I also didn't have SecuROM in services.msc but then I installed from a pirate image as my proper disc had not yet arrived - not sure whether that makes a difference.

[evilragdoll]

Is there a possibility for secuROM reinstalling itself if I decide to install the new BV patch?

[J. M. Pescado]

Yes. The patch would replace or be incompatible with your new noCD, in all likelyhood, so it will no longer function.

[SNUGGLES]

Hey I am hoping that one of you tech savy gamers can help me out here.

I am trying to remove this securom crap off my nephew's pc.  Sadly though he has windows vista ultimate.  Everytime he tries to run trashreg  it keeps giving him an error message saying that " this program needs MSVBVM50.dll which is no longer included in this version of windows"
I am at a loss as to what to do.  Does anyone know of a way to get this off a windows vista ultimate pc without reformatting?

Thanks!

[morriganrant]

Vista is teh evilz. I thought someone with vista had reported that trashreg worked for them?
Is that dll file just not included in vista or does it not work in vista? If its just not included but still functions as it should then you should just be able to download a replacement dll file and stick it in your windows32 file. someone with some vista experience please educate me.

[SNUGGLES]

Hell, I will give that a shot.  Thanks. 

[syberspunk]

Yes. The patch would replace or be incompatible with your new noCD, in all likelyhood, so it will no longer function.

So, it would be pointless to go through the process of removing SecuROM if you updated with the patch.

And we'll have to wait for a new hax0red no-cd patched .exe, right?


Ste

[FourCats]

Yes. The patch would replace or be incompatible with your new noCD, in all likelyhood, so it will no longer function.

So, it would be pointless to go through the process of removing SecuROM if you updated with the patch.

And we'll have to wait for a new hax0red no-cd patched .exe, right?


Ste

Well for me it wasn't a problem.
I downloaded and installed the patch, which over wrote my no-cd hack
so I reapplied the no-cd patch
And I'm playing  the game as I type.

[Ambular]

Well for me it wasn't a problem.
I downloaded and installed the patch, which over wrote my no-cd hack
so I reapplied the no-cd patch
And I'm playing  the game as I type.

Are you seeing any performance improvements?  I'd think that overwriting the new .exe would bollux up at least some of the fixes in the Maxis patch, though if some of the changes were to objects.package or other files then you might still get some benefit with an "unholy hybrid" configuration.

[Deviancy]

Bad advice..

If you use a patch that patches the exe file and then overwrite that exe file with a nocd crack that was made based on an earlier exe build, you're most likely going to limit some of the fixes the patch brought to the table.  On top of that, some hacks have to be re-done when a patch is released.  Those hacks may have an issue since the nocd crack will show that the game is an earlier build and not the newer build.  And there is a possiblity no new nocd crack will be made.  I'm pretty sure they never made a new one when Seasons was patched, they just made an image file you can use daemon and yasu with. 

Ubisoft, Eidos, EA Games, Konami, and Rockstar are just a few of the publishers who use securom and who will be using the newer version.  Ubi is going to be releasing some pretty fun games in the next few months.  So if you're a gamer, I'd just get used to securom because even you get a nocd crack, chances are they'll patch the game and you'll need the patch.  And since there's never a guarantee of a new nocd crack being made for a patched exe, you'd be stuck using the image file or the cd and need securom.

Securom is about as bright as the drm shit sony made for wma files.  But the publishers are so paranoid about piracy that they're just ignoring the fact that software like securom and starforce are crap.  Starforce was by far worse than securom but Ubi and a few others finally dropped it, thankfully. 

[veilchen]

I'm not a rigid person, never was, but I do have principles. I will not allow anyone to install something on my computer that has the potential power to override my set-ups/instructions/whathaveyou. I rather go without those fun games than do that. I go back to console before I do that, or re-discover older, also fun games that don't mess with my computer and my sole authority over it.

Maybe, if enough people get pissed off enough, this will open the door for smaller companies that have until now never had a chance. If they are smart, they'll use protection ware that is not malicious, a rootkit, or spyware. I for one would gladly switch to them.

I will not get used to it, not now, not ever. That's what they're banking on, but I'm not biting. I might be just one person, but I will not go against my firm beliefs or my principles - ever. No game ever invented will be able to do that.

Ahem... Battleship anyone? I'll supply paper and pencil.

[FourCats]

Well for me it wasn't a problem.
I downloaded and installed the patch, which over wrote my no-cd hack
so I reapplied the no-cd patch
And I'm playing  the game as I type.

Are you seeing any performance improvements?  I'd think that overwriting the new .exe would bollux up at least some of the fixes in the Maxis patch, though if some of the changes were to objects.package or other files then you might still get some benefit with an "unholy hybrid" configuration.

not yet.

[prattle]

Bad advice..

If you use a patch that patches the exe file and then overwrite that exe file with a nocd crack that was made based on an earlier exe build, you're most likely going to limit some of the fixes the patch brought to the table.  On top of that, some hacks have to be re-done when a patch is released.  Those hacks may have an issue since the nocd crack will show that the game is an earlier build and not the newer build.  And there is a possiblity no new nocd crack will be made.  I'm pretty sure they never made a new one when Seasons was patched, they just made an image file you can use daemon and yasu with. 

Ubisoft, Eidos, EA Games, Konami, and Rockstar are just a few of the publishers who use securom and who will be using the newer version.  Ubi is going to be releasing some pretty fun games in the next few months.  So if you're a gamer, I'd just get used to securom because even you get a nocd crack, chances are they'll patch the game and you'll need the patch.  And since there's never a guarantee of a new nocd crack being made for a patched exe, you'd be stuck using the image file or the cd and need securom.

Securom is about as bright as the drm shit sony made for wma files.  But the publishers are so paranoid about piracy that they're just ignoring the fact that software like securom and starforce are crap.  Starforce was by far worse than securom but Ubi and a few others finally dropped it, thankfully. 

And there's a better alternative? I'm not the kind of person who would normally get into warez at all, but right now it looks like the better alternative to invasive copy protection is either pirating games or buying a console and swearing off PC gaming. Is either good for EA or the gaming industry as a whole?
I'm reluctant to remove SecuROM because I'm worried about Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword not working (thank you, 2K Games!) but then again, Bioshock broke people's Beyond The Sword game with incompatibility between games running different versions of SecuROM 7. I realize it's probably a corporate decision by EA to include SecuROM 7 on all their games and Sims players are just getting caught in it, but what else can we do?