Securom Removal

[Amerikaner]

Does anyone know how to remove Securom completely (including foldiers, registry keys, etc.) without having to download additional programs?

Btw Koroush, can you warn people if Securom is in software? I know you had a problem with it before with F.E.A.R. and it might help to bring attention to it and make people wary of downloading a company's product if they are going to infest it with ridiculous software.

[Koroush Ghazi]

I already do mention that a program or game has SecuROM in the relevant tweak guide (pages 3 and 4 usually), and please remember that SecuROM is not the same as StarForce. SecuROM is annoying but nowhere near as potentially damaging as StarForce. At worst secuROM can cause your secuROM-protected game to crash. It does not do any other damage or cause any other intrustion.

However there is no generic method of removing secuROM, because if you have multiple secuROM-protected games, manually deleting the SecuROM entries and folders can stop your other secuROM games from working.

I've already posted some details on how to remove the SecuROM service if a game installs it (a search on the term SecuROM on these forums would have found you these):

If you want to completely remove SecuROM after uninstalling this game, including the 'SecuROM User Access' Service it installs in Windows, follow these steps:

1. Uninstall the game as normal.
2. Manually delete the game directory (typically \Program Files\Atari\Crashday-demo\
3. Go to Start>Run and type "Services.msc" (without quotes) and press Enter.
4. Go to the 'Securom User Access' Service, double click on it, click Stop and then set it to Disabled.
5. Go to \Windows\System32\ directory and delete the UAService7.exe file.
6. Go to Start>Run and type "sc delete useraccess7" (without quotes) and press Enter.

Note: This Service may be recreated by one of your other SecuROM games, in which case you will have to keep it running to play them.

The following steps are very risky and only for people who are certain none of their currently installed games use or need SecuROM:

7. Go to \Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\ and delete the SecuROM sub-directory.
8. Go to Start>Run and type "Regedit" (without quotes) and press Enter. Then find the [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\SecuROM] key and delete it if possible.

There is no guaranteed removal method - each new SecuROM game may have additional secuROM files/folders which may require specific manual instructions for removal.

[Amerikaner]

My fault about not noticing the SecuROM part of the tweak guides. I was thinking more of a warning in the news post though as the guide came out after the demo and after I knew CoJ had SecuROM.

I really appreciate your help but why the attitude? The information you posted was not what I was asking for. I was asking for complete removal which is not possible by just using the delete key.

I will just find something on google. Thanks for your help.

[FantasticRhino]

Amerikaner: Koroush did answer your question as follows:

Originally Posted by Koroush Ghazi

However there is no generic method of removing secuROM, because if you have multiple secuROM-protected games, manually deleting the SecuROM entries and folders can stop your other secuROM games from working...

...There is no guaranteed removal method - each new SecuROM game may have additional secuROM files/folders which may require specific manual instructions for removal.

Regarding why I gave you an infraction...

Originally Posted by Amerikaner

I really appreciate your help but why the attitude? The information you posted was not what I was asking for. I was asking for complete removal which is not possible by just using the delete key.

This forum is not a personal tech support forum. This is laid out in the Forum Rules. You have to expect that you will not get the answer you need all the time. This forum is made up of people who volunteer their time to help others help themselves, not to spoonfeed information. Respect is also a big thing here and it's reciprocal, so please keep that in mind in the future.

Thanks,
FantasticRhino

[Koroush Ghazi]

In future I will try to mention whether a demo or game has a particular form of copy protection in the relevant thread, but by the same token, you already asked the same question in the Call of Juarez thread. Perhaps next time if you're overly concerned about secuROM, you can post the question before you install a demo or game. Or even better, you can do a quick search on Google and post the results for the rest of us - I'm not paid to provide you with technical support, I do my best to post relevant information for everyone, but I can't cater to every specific need.

I also indicated to you clearly in that same thread straight after your post that secuROM is not the same as Starforce. SecuROM is generally known to not cause any harm to your system - the worst it can do is cause the particular game using secuROM to crash or not launch properly. Having secuROM on your system after uninstalling a game does not spy on you, or harm your system in any way from what I have read.

There is no universal foolproof removal method, which I again pointed out to you, because there are different versions of secuROM being used for different games. In fact you can do more harm to your system by removing all traces of secuROM because one of your other games may need to use it and will cease functioning without it. I have posted the normal removal method, and this thread remains open in case someone has a better method or utility.

And as pointed out, if this is a major concern to you, spending 10 minutes of your time actually searching for 'SecuROM' on these forums and on Google would have confirmed much of what I have said, in a shorter space of time, and with much less drama.

[Amerikaner]

Like I said, I will just find something on Google if I need to.

Look, Im not sure why you keep pushing for a fight but this isnt going anywhere. Thanks again for your time and effort.

[Foe]

Found this information on another site, and thought it would be useful to add here.

Administrator Edit:

Contents removed - unfortunately this falls into the category of a device or software designed for circumventing copy protection.

[Ki-Rin]

Ok, I have had a few system "blue screen" crashes due to unknown driver conflicts that I have sent reports to ya'll on, and I think I may have just figured out what part of the problem is. I have a game called F.E.A.R. on my computer and it came with a wonderful little piriacy protection program called SecuRom (which is owned by Sony DADC) (and personally I think it's a piece of crap). I have had these crashes since the game was installed, but didn't realize there was anything to it cause the computer is crashing when I run another game called Silent Storm (this game did NOT come with the piece of crap piriacy protection program called SecuRom). I would say that in the last week or so I got a recent update from McAffee, and recently (within the last 3 days) I have attempted to play my Silent Storm game (I beat F.E.A.R. and so no longer play the game, but am awaiting the arival of the expansion pack soon to be released). However, when I click on the game icon for Silent Storm to start up, I get a nice little message from McAffee that it has found a "Generic RootKit.b" trojan and has deleated it for cleaning purposes. The name of this file is Fadpu16E.sys. After that message I get another message that states "Conflict with Disc Emulator Software detected. See www.securom.com/emulation for more details". Funny thing of it is though is that I am not running an emulation program or Alchol 120 or any of that other bull crap. So, after a little research and playing around with the computer, I figure out that the SecuRom program that came with F.E.A.R. is checking EVERY game CD to see if it a pirated disc (I have NO pirated disc any where in my apartment at all!!!). If I turn off McAffee I can play my game without any problems unless of course I get that wonderful "blue screen" about the unknown device driver (and if you look at that blue screen carefully you'll see that down at the bottem it mentions a file named (hold on to your pink panties) Fabpu16E.sys (the shock and horror that must be coming to you. lol). So, being the old school programmer that I am, I can figure out that the piece of crap piriacy program called SecuRom has a file (program) that creates Fabpu16E.sys to verify that the game you are about to play is on it's original CD. Without this file the piriacy program defaults to the conclusion that the CD is not the original one for the game and thus halts loading of the game. I can understand that the dumbasses that made this program want to protect their game. However, the program is trying to protect ALL games, if ALL games were written with this piriacy program there probably wouldn't be a problem. However, Sony (owners of SecuRom) does not own ALL of the software companies out on the market (aren't you just jumping for joy?). So their security program with the ego that it has, is not only messing up other games that it is not even written for, it's even messing up Windows (I would suggest you sue the dog crap out of them). I have attempted to get what help I could from some of the forums about removing the SecuRom program and have done so. However, the problem still persist, which tells me that they have other files on MY computer that are not easily found and that are still doing the same ****. I'm pissed, and you should be as well. I want the program off of my computer, I want to play my games without having to turn my virus protection programs off, and I want my windows to stop crashing.
================================================== ========
This is an email that I've sent to Microsoft. I have NO services running that say SecuRom or uaservice7, I have NO files that can be located in any hidden or system folders that say SecuRom or uaservice7, and I have NO words, keys, values, data, or folders in my Registry that say SecuRom or uaservice7, and the Piece of **** is still running. (go bunny. lol)

Moderator Edit:

Post Clearly and Maturely: This is an extremely important and very broad rule. Basically you should only post in mature, clear English. Use proper punctuation, post brief but clear thread titles, and take the time to construct your post properly. Please adhere to the rules in future, Sharpy

[Zyxthior]

That "Generic Rootkit.B" is most likely McAfee giving a false positive. You're not alone with this issue and SecuRom (as seen here on the McAfee forums):
http://forums.mcafeehelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=91684

It's not at all suprising that SecuRom is using a Rootkit to hide itself to stop people from trying to disable SecuRom. So even though you don't see anythig in your MSCONFIG startup and services directories, something is still running in the background.

Securrom is less invasive than other copy protections, so I wouldn't worry to much about having 'remnants' of it on your system. If you try pulling it off--once you get the expansion pack to Fear you're just going to have it back on again.

And writing Microsoft isn't going to help you...it's not their software (and not their problem).

I believe you're still getting the "Emulation detected" message because some form of emulation is still running somewhere. Just a thought, but by default A120 installs AND enables emulation software. So even if you are not 'running it'--it may be active in the background. I would suggest completely UNinstalling it, any other emulation software you have.

[Koroush Ghazi]

I've noticed this thread is getting a lot of views recently due to the SecuROM protection on Bioshock. I thought it worth noting that it is completely normal to see the "!CAUTION! NEVER DELETE OR CHANGE ANY KEY" registry entry for SecuROM games - this is not a harmful rootkit.

The entry exists under [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\SecuROM] in your Registry, and I've seen that particular registry key many times in the past few years when scanning for rootkits, as it is normally installed with most SecuROM games.

There are also securom folders found under the following directories on your drive (in XP):

\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\SecuROM\
\Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\SecuROM\

As far as copy protection goes, while the activation method in Bioshock is a real pain, SecuROM is not dangerous nor intrusive as such, it does not harm your system or cause any problems as such. The worst thing I've seen SecuROM do is when it fails to recognize the disk in the drive, but multiple retries tend to fix that.

Importantly many, many games use SecuROM, such as STALKER, FEAR, Armed Assault, Supreme Commander, NWN2 - the list goes on. So manually deleting SecuROM entries will see your other games possibly become unusable. Only use the methods in this thread if you're certain no other games you've installed need SecuROM (a quick search on Google for your game's name + securom should reveal details).

So the bottom line is you shouldn't manually delete or alter the secuROM entries or folders.

For those who insist on removing all traces of SecuROM despite the lack of any risk it poses and despite the problems it may cause, you can try using these instructions.