SecuROM

[Cyber 14]

Hi all,

Sorry if this is too similar to an earlier post I made, but the question has a narrower focus.

I've recently come across the ferver over SecuROM, and, aside from its sneaky install and confirmed incompatabilities with certain programs (most notably Process Explorer) and disk drives (some Samsung drives, and there are workarounds), I am baffled as to some of the things people are saying about it. I've heard numerous (unverified) stories from people claiming that it causes optical drives to crash, refuse to burn anything, or stop being recognized, and other system destabilizing issues

Now, as far as I can understand of the code, it simply wraps the exe of the game, and places files in your system that react to emulators and stop the game from running if these types of devices are detected. (I'm not here to argue the morality of this action.) Key word there is "detect". Now, false posatives such as SysInternal's Process Explorer and occasional glitches wherein the game won't run are one thing PC Game Piracy Examined, Page 9) but is there any actual evidence that it messes up a system in the way described

Has anyone here debugged the code and examined it for themselves? I just can't see it having the teeth to do any of these things. Now, I'm not saying that a perfect storm of things could go wrong and cause issues, with SecuROM playing a role, but a lot of other things would gave to go wrong at the exact same time. It would be like one's car's gas tank exploding. And the same thing could be said for any program one installs. I'm asking about SecuROM causing issues mostly, or all, by itself, or because of itself, and the likelihood of these happening.

Now I, personally, have never had any problems at all, and I've been using SecuROM since the days of the original Rainbow Six, and SecuROM 7 since the days of Unreal Tournament 2004, and these have always been some of my most stable, well running games. I just want to know from those who have seen the actual code, what it does, and how it operates, if the risk is there or if it is all just BS.


Thank you for your input. It is greatly appreciated.

Peace out and God bless.

[Subb]

people like u annoy me with ur dot com ****

[Diligence109]

I've seen people talk about the code and seen snippets of it but most of the very technical jargon you're asking for expert input on goes over my head. All I can tell you is the same thing I told you in my other thread - it seems that the glitches that do happen are one in a million.

I cannot think of any worthwhile reason to want to fight my way around a SecuROM protected disk unless I wanted to mount it as an image on a virtual drive (which it is designed to expressly prevent, as you are aware.)

But, that's just my experience and my two cents.