How to get rid of SecuRom, NOW

[Deviancy]

Going the the booty route doesn't necessarily mean you'll be avoiding securom.  A few of the scenes are pirating the games but using image files instead of nocd cracks to allow the player to just mount the image with daemon, use yasu to hide daemon from securom and then play the game.  But securom is still active at that point.  A few of the other scenes are still releasing games with nocd cracks, however they're not updating those nocd cracks everytime there's a patch.  I mean some games have 3-4 patches before everything is taken care of, can't expect the scenes to keep up with that.  But it depends on the popularity of the game, not how many are playing but who.  The sims seems to be loved by many but hated by those who are more into the pirating thing.  Every time a sims game is pirated a ton of guys bitch about how the game is for women, or they'll download it and swear to everyone they're downloading it for their girlfriend.  Which is fitting since in theory, their hand is their girlfriend and it also controls the mouse so it isn't an all out lie.

I'm avoiding Bioshock regardless of the fact there are two pirated versions.  One goes the image route the other is a nocd crack.  The problem of course is that bioshock will without a doubt be patched a few times to resolve some of the issues, that means if I use the nocd crack, I'll have to replace it with the original exe to patch it.. and then wait on a new nocd crack if it ever gets released.  It's just to much of a headache. 

If you're using Xp.. what you can do is create a new user account.. install the sims on that account.  Set it to where it isn't accessible to other users.  That way when you go into your other user account, securom shouldn't be present..

I think that would work..  I mean in theory it'll still be on the hard drive.. but if I remember right.. securom installs in c:\documents and settings\username\blah blah..  If it does that, that would mean the other user account wouldn't have to worry about it..

[veilchen]

I believe I asked that before, but I don't think I got any kind of answer.

If you install the game on a peripheral hard drive (one you plug in via usb port) will SecuRom still infest your main drive? Your partition advise reminded me of that. If that's possible, then installing on a plug-in drive should do the same. Yes? No? Maybe? Do I not know what I'm talking about? I'm not at all tech savvy, and I've learned a lot the last couple of days. So please enlighten me.

[kutto]

I actually did that. I installed it on my peripheral hard drive. However, I installed it while running my main hard drive; that is, the peripheral hard drive was connected, and I instructed the installer to put it on there. SecuRom still managed it's way into my registry.

[veilchen]

Bleh, there goes that easy solution. But just like some other easy outs, it sounded too good to be true anyway.
Thanks Kutto.

[lovesimsKL]

I have been waiting to see if anyone asked this and I have read the whole thread but I can't find the answer.

I stupidly downloaded H&M and BV from EA Link. Do I need to worry about SecuROM with H&M or can I deal with it by removing it and getting the nocd crack for BV? Secondly since I do not have a "cd" do I still use the nocd crack for BV?

I'm sorry if these are n00b questions  .

[moonsgal]

Securom runs/installs in the .exe application. H&M really didn't use securom, only safe disc cause it was only seasons.exe was required to load the game, but thats changed with bv. It would only be necessarily to run a no cdcrack for bon voyage.

[lovesimsKL]

Thanks That's what I thought I just wanted to make sure.

[baaaflatfit]

H&M really didn't use securom, only safe disc

Nope.  H&M used SecuRom, and did install it -- especially for those who 1) downloaded it from EA, and/or 2) have limited Windows accounts (non-admin).

Max

[jsalemi]

I think maybe we're all overlooking the point that with sims games prior to BV, it didn't really matter if the no-cd.exe was updated, since you could apply the patch and still run it with an image -- Safedisc didn't care. However, with all these newer games going to SecuROM, perhaps the no-cd makers will continue updating the .exes to keep SecuROM off their systems.

[Deviancy]

Maxis began using Securom on every sims release since April of 2007. 

I don't do the stuff discs.. so I'm not sure whats on those.  But I read on the Maxis board that the H&M did have securom.

[Zazazu]

Going the the booty route doesn't necessarily mean you'll be avoiding securom.  A few of the scenes are pirating the games but using image files instead of nocd cracks to allow the player to just mount the image with daemon, use yasu to hide daemon from securom and then play the game.  But securom is still active at that point.  A few of the other scenes are still releasing games with nocd cracks, however they're not updating those nocd cracks everytime there's a patch.  I mean some games have 3-4 patches before everything is taken care of, can't expect the scenes to keep up with that.  But it depends on the popularity of the game, not how many are playing but who.  The sims seems to be loved by many but hated by those who are more into the pirating thing.  Every time a sims game is pirated a ton of guys bitch about how the game is for women, or they'll download it and swear to everyone they're downloading it for their girlfriend.  Which is fitting since in theory, their hand is their girlfriend and it also controls the mouse so it isn't an all out lie.

Deviancy, we're talking about SecuRom as it pertains to playing the Sims2 here, not any other game that someone may get at some other point and choose or not choose to patch. No one here is saying that you must get rid of SecuRom, just if you want to...this is how. The no-CD crack I mention does not contain SecuRom.

Some don't like having SecuRom because they don't like that the EAxis of EAvil installed it on their system without prior notification...not even stating that there was 3rd party software included. I'm one of those. Some don't like having SecuRom on their system because it has caused problems with making other software not work, or CD drives not work, or antivirus programs not work. I'm also one of those.

EAxis patches are notoriously crap which breaks just as much as it fixes. Most of us here go to this site for our "patches" because they work better and don't contain the same bloated twisted twine-code that caused the problems in the first place.

It's not bad advice. It's a solution that you can choose to use. If you fuck it up later by installing something else with SecuRom on it, well, that's your fault. And guess what? You can follow the same directions again and get it off your system.

*gets back in her rocking chair and mumbles about know-it-all kids these days*

Oh, and what kind of stupid guy has to lie and say he got the Sims for his girlfriend? Sounds like someone has adequacy issues. Or someone else is talking out of their ass. 

[shanpooter]

"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".

I performed this step and upon restarting my computer, my display settings have returned to the defaults.  My desktop wallpaper, the color of my taskbar, the stupid language bar was back, etc.  My computer otherwise seems to be running fine, but have I done something terribly wrong here?  I know it was this step because prior to doing it I had restarted windows, and restarted again after.

[torawashi]

For the people who can't find uaservice7.exe, I had the same problem. I simply ignored the step that called for stopping the process/deleting the file, and the removal worked just fine. I was able to run the game with the no-CD crack, and there's no sign of SecuRom.

[Azrael]

Oh, and what kind of stupid guy has to lie and say he got the Sims for his girlfriend? Sounds like someone has adequacy issues.

I'll admit that I told a few of my friends this very thing. But then, those few particular friends of mine aren't exactly open-minded, so.... I mean let's face it - although it's pretty hard to just come out and assume these things without polling people, but I'd be willing to put money down and say that mostly girls play The Sims. My main reasoning (and I'll admit as well that it's kinda flimsy..) being that it's awfully hard to find a comparable selection of male skins and hair to the female ones... just look over at MTS2... You don't even have to actually LOOK at all of them (though I'm pretty sure most of the male hairdos were designed by girls..) - just the number of pages. Pretty steep difference, really..

Alright, I've talked out my ass enough. Bring on your worst! 

[Nimmie]

Nevermind. I fixed.

[muridae]

For the people who can't find uaservice7.exe, I had the same problem. I simply ignored the step that called for stopping the process/deleting the file, and the removal worked just fine.

When you say that you ignored the step because that service (uaservice7.exe) didn't exist, did you still do the rest of the step and unregister cmdlineext.dll?

As I understand it, you only get the uaservice7.exe service installed if you're running Bon Voyage under a limited (non-Adminstrator) account. SecuROM needs that service to give it administrator-like privilege in an account that shouldn't have that, which to me is one of the more worrying low-level activities it gets up to on your computer.

cmdlineext.dll seems to get installed no matter what kind of account you're running the game under, so you need to look for it even if you don't find uaservice7.exe. If it's there in C:\Windows\system32, run "regsvr32 /u cmdlineext.dll" to unregister it, reboot, and then delete the file.

[Zazazu]

Oh, and what kind of stupid guy has to lie and say he got the Sims for his girlfriend? Sounds like someone has adequacy issues.

I'll admit that I told a few of my friends this very thing. But then, those few particular friends of mine aren't exactly open-minded, so.... I mean let's face it - although it's pretty hard to just come out and assume these things without polling people, but I'd be willing to put money down and say that mostly girls play The Sims. My main reasoning (and I'll admit as well that it's kinda flimsy..) being that it's awfully hard to find a comparable selection of male skins and hair to the female ones... just look over at MTS2... You don't even have to actually LOOK at all of them (though I'm pretty sure most of the male hairdos were designed by girls..) - just the number of pages. Pretty steep difference, really..

Alright, I've talked out my ass enough. Bring on your worst! 

Oh, my friends think I'm a total dork because I talk about my simmies to them...and they don't play computer games (even the guys) at all, much less the Sims. But that's their loss.

As for the custom content issue with males/females, I kind of think it's because in life, there's not as much variety in male hairstyles and clothing. Plus, women are prettier. 

[JennyJenny]

Okay, so I ran the regdelnull hkcu -s and the regdelnull hku-s and the first found the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SecuROM\ CAUTION NEVER DELETE and deleted it but the 2nd didn't find anything. It scanned, and told me the scan was complete. In my registry I still have one marked BinData and another called SecData1. Are these the keys I am supposed to delete manually?
ETA: Wait maybe this wasn't clear enough.

In My SecuROM folder there are 3 sub-folders, Keys (contains 1 subfolder, named 399fe07, which, in turn, contains  a folder called 0001 and holds the things I mentioned before called BinData and SecData 1), User Data (which appears to be empty) and a folder called WL( which has a subfolder called 0002, which contains 3 files called CK, DATA, and VER)


Crap I am so confused. Here is a screen cap of what I am talking about: http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q131/PollyNo9/Capture.jpg?t=1192126886

[dano]

Thanks to Zazazu for this info.   I was really ticked off when I learned about the securom spyware crap & logged onto MATY because I knew there would be info here.

FYI, ever since I started using this fix, my graphics problems have apparently gone away.  I have a fairly recent Nvidia video card (7600GS) & ever since I installed BV I've been having crashes.  The whole screen would freeze & then get corrupted (like random pixels were shifted right or left).   My computer would either reboot by itself, or I'd have to do a hard reboot myself.  I kept updating my drivers to the most recent beta drivers from Nvidia, but it never helped.

After I did these steps, I haven't had this happen.  I even tried to cause it, by setting all my graphics options to high and going to the CAS screen.    Not sure why this fix would have that effect, but I'm glad it did.

dano

[muridae]

Okay, so I ran the regdelnull hkcu -s and the regdelnull hku-s and the first found the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SecuROM\ CAUTION NEVER DELETE and deleted it but the 2nd didn't find anything. It scanned, and told me the scan was complete. In my registry I still have one marked BinData and another called SecData1. Are these the keys I am supposed to delete manually?

That's right. If you'd run both scans and said no to them it would have found a registry key in both places, but they seem to be different views of the same key so when you delete from hkcu the kcu key vanishes as well.

The other SecuROM keys in the registry don't have null characters in them to make them undeletable, so regdelnull won't report them. So yes, you have to delete those manually. Delete the entire SecuROM folder in the registry, and all the subkeys below it will go too.

[JennyJenny]

So I should delete the folders under Keys and move on to the next step?

[muridae]

So I should delete the folders under Keys and move on to the next step?

You can delete the whole SecuROM folder from the registry. That'll take out the Keys, UserData and WL folders and everything underneath them.

[JennyJenny]

Thanks. Now I move on to the next steps, correct?

[torawashi]

When you say that you ignored the step because that service (uaservice7.exe) didn't exist, did you still do the rest of the step and unregister cmdlineext.dll?

Correct. Cmdlineext.dll did exist, and needed to be unregistered.

As I understand it, you only get the uaservice7.exe service installed if you're running Bon Voyage under a limited (non-Adminstrator) account. SecuROM needs that service to give it administrator-like privilege in an account that shouldn't have that, which to me is one of the more worrying low-level activities it gets up to on your computer.

Aha! I run everything from the admin account, so that would explain why it wasn't there.

[Azrael]

(I apologize in advance for remaining off-topic..)

Oh, my friends think I'm a total dork because I talk about my simmies to them...and they don't play computer games (even the guys) at all, much less the Sims. But that's their loss.

  I hear you on that. Oh well. Different strokes for different folks, I always say. 

As for the custom content issue with males/females, I kind of think it's because in life, there's not as much variety in male hairstyles and clothing. Plus, women are prettier.  Tongue

True... but still, why make guys pretty too? I mean, surely the majority of males don't sport 'metro-ish' hairdos and clothes..