How to get rid of SecuRom, NOW

[wolfskies]

Well, I have two related problems.

1) I have Sims and expansions up to FT. I found SecuRom on my PC, and tried to follow the directions to get rid of it. The only thing I can find is the registry keys, not any folder. The first step with the DLL file didn't show anything. I searched my registry and didn't find any null files.

My game on my PC won't load a house now, it just crashes, and I am unsure if just deleting the registry keys will take care of the problem. I am running Sims on Windows XP on the Administrator account on my desktop.

Anyway, I got frustrated and installed it on my laptop and used the No CD Crack... on to problem 2.

2) The CD Crack for FT works fine except one thing. I can't use the CTRL-SHIFT-C anymore! I type the keys and it don't work! I checked my computer to see if any hot keys were assigned to that function but didn't find any. I am running Windows Vista Premium on my Laptop.

Any ideas? I have tried all the downloads at GameCopyWorld and all of them work, but none allow me to pull up the cheat window.

WS

[witch]

Apparently there are several other programs, particularly on a laptop, which use that combination of keys. If you figure out which one, disable or change the keys the program wants and you regain control of Ctrl Shift C for the sims.

[wolfskies]

Apparently there are several other programs, particularly on a laptop, which use that combination of keys. If you figure out which one, disable or change the keys the program wants and you regain control of Ctrl Shift C for the sims.

Well, I have looked and looked. Funny thing is, nothing opens when I press the keys outside the game. Shouldn't it load something if the keys are pressed? I have a program on my desktop that had that problem. It loaded Trillian. I don't have that installed on my laptop yet, or I would be looking at it for that. I guess I will just have to keep opening every program on my laptop and see if it has those keys listed. Joy!

WS

[witch]

Do a search here, I'm sure I've read of just this problem recently but also some time before that. I didn't pay much attention because I didn't have the problem, but I have an idea it was things that are specific to laptops, like power saving programs or whatever.

[wolfskies]

Do a search here, I'm sure I've read of just this problem recently but also some time before that. I didn't pay much attention because I didn't have the problem, but I have an idea it was things that are specific to laptops, like power saving programs or whatever.

I found it. I did a couple of searches on the internet and found that HP Health Check has that set as their short cut key. Then I just had to do a search for the program and change the properties to none. Thank GOD! It was so sucky having to play with no money cheat.

Thanks for your help!

WS

[Marhis]

Great, I've found it, at last on the Mac. I'm almost sure it installed with Spore demo.
It's concealed in a system plist (you need a plist editor to check), hidden as well (it's a dot-something). In mine it's .GlobalPreferences.plist, in /Users/<yourloginname>/Library/Preferences.  This plist stores some Finder prefs, like iTools username, # of recent documents to list, and so on.

Proof:


Now: does somebody know what do I need to do? Deleting those entries in plist is enough or have I to perform additional stuff?

[seelindarun]

Great mac-fu!  I have no idea if it would be enough to delete those entries; I didn't install Spore onto any macs, and I'm a little dubious about doing so in order to experiment with you on this.   However, I'd love to know how this turns out.

[patzi]

Ok, I downloaded regdelnull and typed in the command and got an error.  So I downloaded devlin, browsed to the appropriate place; no securom was found.  So I did a search of my entire C drive for securom:  NOTHING!  However it is in the registry.  Can I delete the registry keys?

[Callista]

I'm using a  no-CD for Pets, because SecuROM came with Sims 2 Deluxe (base game/NL). I have Uni and Pets now. I'm about to install Seasons and OFB EPs. Should I do anything other than installing the new EPs? I'm guessing that this will make Seasons my latest EP, meaning I should be using a no-CD for that one, rather than for Pets; so I guess that means changing the Pets no-CD back to the regular file, right?

[tunaisafish]

Yes - install the no-cd for your latest ep
No - the old pets .exe file does not need replacing back to the original.

[ScorpioMaurus]

In the thread here :
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?PHPSESSID=d170b4c761611f7417f3f256e1e36aee&topic=9929.0
They suggest getting your NoCD crack from GameCopyWorld.com but I would recommend GameBurnWorld or Megagames because for the last few months every time I visit Gamecopyworld I get hit with a virus or Drive by download. I thought people should know because it's one of those that installs as a fake AntiVirus such as AntiVirusXP or VirusLab2009 and then gives you warning about your PC having a virus. It takes quite a bit of time to get rid of and this latest one forced a complete reformat because it stopped AVG from being able to download updates and changes something in the search so that when you try to download any new AntiSpy or AntiVirus it will redirect you to porn sites or software sites and not let you see site's like Kaspersky, AVG, or Spybot ETC.  I don't even know how to contact GameCopyWorld to find out if they know about it because I can't access the site without being hit. I don't know if it's like Securom where GameCopyWorld is aware and doesn't care because it sponsers their site or it they were hacked and that's what's causing it. Until this last time I was able to remove it by using SmitFraudFix in safe mode but I don't know what happened yesterday morning. I was not able to remove it completely but it seems to be many viruses all in one Bratsk, Renos, SmitFraud, VirusLab2009. So Anyways please be careful people.

[Marhis]

Update on the Mac issue; thanks to skygirl22 (nanacake on this forum), apparently SecuROM comes also with Pets EP.
In the end, I deleted those entries in plist, and that seems to not harm anything, since I didn't experienced any malfunctioning so far, but I of course don't know if that was enough to get rid of SecuROM - they're DATA entries, i.e. contains binary data, but really don't know.

More interesting informations and tips in this thread on MTS2 (thanks again nanacake).

[pbox]

A .plist is just a preference (settings) .. that is why I'm so unsure (on the mts2 thread) if SecuRom is being installed at all with Pets/OSX. I wasn't able to find any other evidence than this one plist entry, which doesn't mean there is nothing, but: when the Spore install of Securom is plainly visible for everyone, is it reasonable to assume that it would be *this* undercover with Pets? Invisible in the logs, in the Finder, in Search, in ActivityMonitor?

It is *still* strange, and annoying, that a game install is fumbling with my global settings. This is *my* machine, for fuck's sake.

[Mootilda]

It is *still* strange, and annoying, that a game install is fumbling with my global settings. This is *my* machine, for fuck's sake.

Unfortunately, EA and Sony believe that it is *their* machine, to do with as they wish.  They have more lobbyists than you do, so they might even convince some governments to make it law:  if you install TS2 or Spore or TS3, the machine is theirs!

Of course, this is one of the reasons that many of us are so angry at EA.  Angry enough that some people are actually hoping that EA will fail (ie, go bankrupt; stop making games).

[pbox]

I believe sooner or later they'll shoot themselves in the foot in the same way the music industry has =/ not sure whether that's a good thing or not.

Apart from that: you don't know OSX, Mootilda, do you? I don't really know whether or not it is possible for a process to run without showing up in Activity Monitor .. I'd be happy for a competent opinion on that.

ETA: I just had the genius idea to simply email Aspyr and ask what kind of business they have in my global prefs .. but, er, WTF? "Support" = a phone number in the US? And a PO box

Cute.

[jolrei]

So I did a search of my entire C drive for securom:  NOTHING!  However it is in the registry.  Can I delete the registry keys?

It is not unheard of that securom will install in registry, but not on the drive.  You do want to get rid of the securom registry keys.

[Mootilda]

Apart from that: you don't know OSX, Mootilda, do you?

No, I'm sorry.  I don't know much about MACs.

[Marhis]

Well, Mac OS X = Unix, and as far as I can tell (not a sysadmin myself) rootkits don't show up in activity monitor, (or with top command, if you want to use command line stuff à la Pes).
I have no doubt that a skilled sysadmin would know how to detect bad things at work in its system, but alas, I'm definitely too far from having those skills :/.

[seelindarun]

One notable difference between Spore and Pets is that Transgaming declared publicly that they would be using Securom on all their Cider-wrapped games for EA.  There's no question that Spore exposes macs to suckrom, whether you can find the processes for it or not.  The only debate is about how harmful it might be, but I've seen exactly one post by the same guy linked a dozen times, and no one else. 

Aspyr anyway has never said they use suckrom on TS2 or any EPs.  They do put it on some games, and have said so.  It's hard to believe that they would only be coy about TS2.  I'm inclined to think that the .plist entries for Pets EP is just leftover junk from the port.  At the time Pets was released for OS X, Seasons had yet to be released for PC, and EA itself did not add suckrom until BV.
I'm still going to edit my .plist though.

[Simsample]

Well, Mac OS X = Unix, and as far as I can tell (not a sysadmin myself) rootkits don't show up in activity monitor, (or with top command, if you want to use command line stuff à la Pes).
I have no doubt that a skilled sysadmin would know how to detect bad things at work in its system, but alas, I'm definitely too far from having those skills :/.

Have you tried 'OSX Rootkit Hunter'? Link and details here:
http://theappleblog.com/2008/01/23/why-mac-security-matters-os-x-rootkit-hunter/

[Marhis]

Yes, thanks Simsample, I tried that one, but apparently it didn't find anything on my mac.
I hope that deleting those SecuROM entries in plist did the trick, so far I haven't experienced any malfunctioning... (crosses fingers)

[Fat D]

for those of you who want to prevent MGS from creating securom infestation without downloading the entire ISO:
http://rapidshare.com/files/166037112/Sims2EP9.exe
now also RAR'd for low-bandwidth users:
http://rapidshare.com/files/166374207/Sims2EP9.rar

[TisiphoneStar]

I've been having weird problems with securom. I deleted everything but the only step that didn't work for me was the securom folder in the roaming folder.
I can't delete it because it doesn't exist, hidden folders are visible, but it's just not there.

Am I overlooking something important? Please excuse my utter lack of tech skills. 

[morriganrant]

In the thread here :
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?PHPSESSID=d170b4c761611f7417f3f256e1e36aee&topic=9929.0
They suggest getting your NoCD crack from GameCopyWorld.com but I would recommend GameBurnWorld or Megagames because for the last few months every time I visit Gamecopyworld I get hit with a virus or Drive by download. I thought people should know because it's one of those that installs as a fake AntiVirus such as AntiVirusXP or VirusLab2009 and then gives you warning about your PC having a virus. It takes quite a bit of time to get rid of and this latest one forced a complete reformat because it stopped AVG from being able to download updates and changes something in the search so that when you try to download any new AntiSpy or AntiVirus it will redirect you to porn sites or software sites and not let you see site's like Kaspersky, AVG, or Spybot ETC.  I don't even know how to contact GameCopyWorld to find out if they know about it because I can't access the site without being hit. I don't know if it's like Securom where GameCopyWorld is aware and doesn't care because it sponsers their site or it they were hacked and that's what's causing it. Until this last time I was able to remove it by using SmitFraudFix in safe mode but I don't know what happened yesterday morning. I was not able to remove it completely but it seems to be many viruses all in one Bratsk, Renos, SmitFraud, VirusLab2009. So Anyways please be careful people.

With AntiVirusXP I had luck removing it by using avast "run on boot" option, smitfraudfix or malwarebyte's anti malware program, and manual removal by searching for and pinning down anything I found in services.msc and msconfig that shouldn't have been there and looked odd. Then double checking while is safe mode. I've removed it twice this year from two different peoples pcs who do not even torrent. I now just keep a small flash drive with necessary tools for it's removal. Adaware, avast, smitfraudfix, malwarebytes and a few other things including spybot, because of that lock down that it does to certain websites. Avast will install while other anti viruses are installed. AVG has a hissy fit. Gameburnworld makes me feel dirty for some reason. I seem to pick up more from their pages then I ever do from gamecopyworld.

[profoundlycan]

I've been having weird problems with securom. I deleted everything but the only step that didn't work for me was the securom folder in the roaming folder.
I can't delete it because it doesn't exist, hidden folders are visible, but it's just not there.

Am I overlooking something important? Please excuse my utter lack of tech skills. 

Actually, I had this problem as well (I have Vista), but managed to figure it out. I went to C:\Users\<Your Administrator Name> then did an advanced search. When doing so, make sure you check the box that asks to reveal non-indexed and hidden files. For me, the folder SecuROM came up, but the actual malformed files that you have to delete specifically using administrator command were not within that folder. I found mine in C:\Users\<Your Administrator Name>\AppData\Roaming\SecuROM\UserData. Afterward, I ran administrator command and managed to finally delete the stupid files. Then I went back to my Roaming folder and deleted the empty SecuROM/UserData directories and then deleted the crap from my registry. Only after all of that was it finally gone.