How to get rid of SecuRom, NOW

[fantasy]

Thank-you all so much!!   I know I was a pain with all my newb questions. It worked!! It loaded perfectly, without the Securom infested CD!! If I hear of anybody having problems with Securom I will definitely be recommending this site. SCREW YOU EA!!!!!!! I'll have to check and see if it works in Guest in the morning. Right now my bed is calling my name...


One more newbish question though. I know the booklet says close all background task using task manager, and anti virus/malware software( I have 3 running on my computer) but does that really matter?I feel my computer is nude with my protection being off, and I'm scared of deleting anything from task manager and then I'll have to constantly keep enabling everything every time I stop playing the Sims and disabling everything when I want to play. Seems tedious. However, even though my gaming computer can take all the expansions, since Bon voyage I have noticed a slowness in the loading screen and just now when I launched FreeTime it was like a minute slow and black screened for a few seconds before going to the neighborhood. So if disabling everything will make it run a bit faster,if not...

[mildlydisguised]

Well you may be able to free up a bit of RAM by closing background tasks but I can't imagine it would make much difference.  You might want to look into getting more RAM for your computer, if you are having a lot of problems with slow gameplay.

Personally I wouldn't advise turning off your virus protection in case you want to browse the internet whilst playing the game or in case you forget to turn it back on after playing.

[morriganrant]

It depends on your virus scan, your computer and the other programs running if closing them would help you any.
I close down anything I can get away with, including explorer.exe, but leave my virus scan on as well as my browser. Some virus scans are hogs though. Like Norton and it may help your game play to close that as well, but you should disconnect from the net before you do so and remember to turn it back on before you connect to the net again.

[witch]

*witch bestows Reading Comprehension 101 on naravyn

You might find this handy if you wish to type like a grownup.



Is it school holidays again? They seem to come round so fast.

[Lum]

ok.. curious on something.. i have avoided buying any of the EPs/SPs with SecuRom on them so as to not get it on my comp, but if i am reading this post right, if i install the game but don't use the exe file that comes with it, securom won't get installed.. is that right? so basically, if i buy the games, get the no cd patch from the internet and use that instead from the very beginning, i won't have to deal with it. if its that easy, then i can begin to jump for joy and get more of my games. if not, please tell me.

Basically, that's it. Good summary of the whole situation, actually.

[Kyna]

As long as you're installing it on the administrator account on your PC.

If you install it using a non-admin account then the process is
- install from disc
- remove securom
- run from no-CD exe

[fantasy]

My praise for No CD cracks has dwindled some. I installed Freetime on my Admin. account, used the no CD crack and played for a few minutes to see if anything was working right. It was so I went to bed and haven't  been on for two days, but my sisters have. On Guest it crashes right at the load screen when it says Breaking Down Restorable Cars. I have tried 5 times and it always crashes at that exact moment. I wouldn't really care it's just that my sisters and I saved games are on Guest. We don't play on Admin. because we want all our Sims to meet each other and they can't do that on our different Admin. accounts. Secondly they tell me that not only does it crash on Guest but also  on their Admin accounts as well. So I made a new account just for Sims play with administrator access but not password protected so we can start from scratch. It worked find on there until you try to create a sim. You can stay on the create a sim screen for a few minutes then after that the whole thing crashes and I mean severely. Computer completely shuts down and I have to reboot. What is going on and how can I fix this? Also my sister's, well there's no other way of putting this, bootleg PC version of Final Fantasy 7 is messed up as well.  It's just like the no crack CD. She doesn't have to use a disk. She downloaded it from some website is all I know and it was working perfectly until I installed the no crack for Freetime. It now loads really small and when she tries to play the whole computer shuts down. Needless to say she's not that happy with me at the moment.  I want to free up some disk space by defraging but I'm worried it'll mess up the no crack(seems like the crack is messed up anyway but still...)

[jolrei]

We don't play on Admin. because we want all our Sims to meet each other and they can't do that on our different Admin. accounts. Secondly they tell me that not only does it crash on Guest but also  on their Admin accounts as well.

So, what's going on here?  You all play from different admin accounts, but the 'hoods and saved stuff is stored on a different "guest" account?  Or are you transferring 'hoods between computers/accounts?  How do your sims all "meet" each other?  I'm assuming you are not transferring sims between neighbourhoods.

[fantasy]

We all have different Admin accounts to surf the net and save things that only we want to see and that's it. We play the Sims on Guest and always have. When I say our Sims can only meet on Guest that's exactly what I mean. I don't know any other way to put it. If we play on our different Admin accounts, and we did once when the base game first came out, we noticed that only the Sims we made where on it. Example if my sister made a Sim family on her Admin account they did not show up on mine or my other sister's, but when we make Sims on Guest we can see each other Sims and make our sims be friends with each other etc. I can't make it any clearer than that. Anyway that's not what I was asking. I just want to know why the no crack Is making my computer crash and how do I fix it.

[jsalemi]

Sounds like you have a bad no-cd.exe.  Go to gamecopyworld, and download it again; make sure you get the right one for your EP and whatever patch level you're at.

[Insanity Prelude]

Okay, did the regdelnull part and ran CureSecuROM. UAService7 doesn't exist, this being an admin account, and there's no "cmddlineext.dll" in the System32 folder either. Got the no-CD crack in (FT-patch 3 is 1.3somethingorother, right? It's working smoothly anyway.) Couldn't find a SecuROM folder anywhere in my documents (or, you know, anywhere, when running a search of the computer with hidden files viewable.) Am I done?

(Note: I'm on Vista. Not by choice, I assure you.)

Ugh. If I hadn't heard about false torrents and all this other crap, I'd seriously consider ARR-ing Apartment Life when it comes out. As it is, I may just ignore that EP entirely.

[J. M. Pescado]

There isn't really a "False torrent" problem with high-profile items. That's just lies and propaganda sown by EAxis spies to scare people.

[Solowren]

There isn't really a "False torrent" problem with high-profile items. That's just lies and propaganda sown by EAxis spies to scare people.

Exactly. Anything done by Vitality is safe to download- I think they've done pretty much every expansion pack.

[Insanity Prelude]

Vitality. I'll keep that in mind.

[witch]

Reloaded, is another name I've found reliable.

[jungant]

In step 2, after I changed the directory to c:\windows\system32 using cd command and typed 'uaservice7/remove' I get a message saying 'uaservice7 is not recognized as an internal or external command, operatable program or batch file.' Did I do something wrong?

[witch]

You probably just don't have that service. Different people have said they don't have all the bits listed. Probably depends on your setup. I'd just carry on with the rest of the instructions if I were you.

[Lord Darcy]

Anything done by Vitality is safe to download- I think they've done pretty much every expansion pack.

Not quite. Their Life Stories ISO and subsequent Repack got nuked. Eventually Reloaded released Proper.
Every major cracking group can drop the ball once in a while. Usually they release Repack, or other group will come up with Proper.

To be sure, you can always check whether any given release is Nuked (non-working, bad crack, etc.) or not at NFOHump. Hover over the nuke image to find out why it got Nuked.

Reloaded, is another name I've found reliable.

RZR DEV FLT. Ah good days.

[myskaal]

So I went through the steps in the topic post. At the end of it all I somehow lost my HAL.dll for windows.

Going through the steps to try to replace that now but as a heads up for less experienced users .. be careful what you're pressing and typing and if you're not sure find someone who's more experienced in deleting things through the command prompt.

I believe this problem occured when I went ahead with:

Issue the following command to show the two remaining hidden malformed files: "dir /A". To delete the two remaining hidden malformed files issue the following command: "del /F /AH *". Confirm "yes" for each of the two file deletions of the malformed files.

after not being able to find a SecuROM folder in my Documents and Settings subdirectories.

I only received one confirmation of a file to delete and simply following the instructions to confirm without actually looking at what it was I was confirming has created a massive mess I hope will not cause the loss of everything I had on my hard drive.


But thanks for this post. SecuROM is a nightmare and it's nice to have help around on getting rid of it.

[Kazzandra]

At the end of it all I somehow lost my HAL.dll for windows.

By chance had you recently installed Windows XP SP3?

[myskaal]

AFAIK, no. I will not say definately no. My computer did recently install some sort of windows update and reboot itself while I was at work. I only recall seeing the notice it had done so when I returned home and did not check to see what it had installed.

I've started a new topic in regards to my now totally borked computer on the Oops! board. After doing some research on the HAL.dll error I'm not sure if what's happened was caused by my removing SecuROM or if the messing around inside Windows' guts made the OS decide now was the best time to go tits up on me. (I've been waiting for it. I've gone a good 4 years on this install).
 

[J. M. Pescado]

Not quite. Their Life Stories ISO and subsequent Repack got nuked. Eventually Reloaded released Proper.
Every major cracking group can drop the ball once in a while. Usually they release Repack, or other group will come up with Proper.

As a general rule, it doesn't really matter if it got nuked subsequently, that just means you need to go get the good crack which will probably be up on GCW. The ISO itself is still good.

[Zilla]

I've know this has been discussed, but I need to know for fact rather than hearsay.

After 3 weeks of endless problems with my rig that runs on Vista, I went out and bought a IMac. I have zero regrets making the switch, but when I bought the system I also bought a copy of IWorks, Photoshop Elements 6 and the Sims 2 base game.  I don't have any problems with IWork or Photoshop Elements but I have yet to install Sims 2 due to fear that it will mess with my new system.

I've done searches to see if Securom comes on the Mac version of the base game and have come up empty handed. All I can find is mention of the PC version. Are my concerns just in my head or is there a valid reason for my unwillingness to install it without knowing what I'll be loading into my system? If Securom is on it, will it act like a feral cat locked in a small room or will it behave itself?

I'm still trying to work through the issues on my Vista system. It's been a major pain in the ass with no answers to be found anywhere, but if I can atleast get answers to some of it's problems I can always keep my pixel people on that system and not bother loading it into this one.

[seelindarun]

I don't have a definitive answer for you, but I have searched and asked all the macheads I know: the best information I have is that Aspyr has not used Securom on its ports of TS2.  The base game in particular has very little to no chance of having it, since even EA didn't use it until BV.  On mac versions just use your garden variety no-cd cracks on base game or any EPs.  No Suckrom exorcism necessary. 

[Amairani]

Hi there,

I'm about to buy Bon Voyage, so I've been reading (and re-reading) all 31 page of this thread for the past few days but couldn't find a clear answer to this question:

the patch for BonVoyage is .exe file, so "to apply a patch" means to run this .exe file, but if it contains SecuRom, as I understood, won't it be installed on my PC once I click on it?

I'd greatly appreciate if someone could explain it to me, if I'm missing something.