SECDRV.SYS Not Loading in Windows 10; this will break thousands of older games.

Anonymous
2015-08-01T20:13:40+00:00

Hello,

I have discovered an unfortunate problem with Windows 10.

Many games from the early-mid 2000's used Macrovision's SafeDisc (version 2) as a means of copy protection. At game startup, Windows loaded SECDRV.SYS to verify an original game disc was in the drive, after which the game would start.

When you try to run ANY game which uses this SafeDisc form of copy protection in Windows 10, the following happens:

 - You get an error window that tells you to log in with Administrator Privileges and to try again. This happens on any account, even those with Administrator access. The game fails to start.

 - If you then set "Run as Admin" compatibility mode on the game's startup file, the message disappears, but the game doesn't start.

 - Keeping a window open for C:\WINDOWS\SYSWOW64\DRIVERS shows SECDRV.SYS appearing at the moment you try to start the game. Based on its size, it appears to be the file that is present on the game disc (tested across several games), even though I see no disc activity and cannot find the file elsewhere on my system.

 - The Windows event log shows that SECDRV.SYS failed to load.

 - This happens both with an upgraded install (Windows 8.1 > Windows 10) and with a fresh Windows 10 install, with one of the games being installed immediately upon the fresh install completing.

 - On my Windows 64-bit 8.1 system, C:\WINDOWS\WINSXS has a folder called amd64_macrovision-protection-safedisc_31bf3856ad364e35_6.3.9600.16384_none_4e6b3758913c9240 with a SECDRV.SYS in it, presumably the one that ships with Windows. Windows 10 had such a folder in early builds, but it is missing from the release build. It appears SafeDisc support is missing entirely.

OTHER TESTING I HAVE DONE:

 - I updated one of the games to a version that no longer required the CD check, and it started immediately and ran perfectly once the check was removed. However, this is possible only with a very limited number of games, or resorting to fixes that violate the game's EULA or put the user's system security at risk.

 - I tried disabling driver signature verification and installing one of the games again; same problem.

 - Multiple compatibility modes; same problem. XP (Service Pack 3) mode and / or Run as Administrator mode make the error message go away, but the games still fail to launch.

SIGNIFICANCE:

Unless this is fixed in Windows 10, a massive catalog of older games will cease to function in Windows 10 for the simple reason that they cannot pass the SafeDisc copy protection check. I am accustomed to some games breaking with every new version of Windows as technology progresses (for example, the loss of the ability to run 16-bit programs in 64-bit Windows), but this seems to be an unnecessarily harsh change.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Gaming

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-09-09T22:16:46+00:00

    wmcole:

    I hate to be put in the position of defending Microsoft but may I point out"

    1. They are responding to the uproar from the public and the government to "make your products more secure" -- not a bad goal in my opinion.
    2. They are, after all, a commercial enterprise -- one of their major goals is to make money for their stakeholders. I will concede they may have gone a little overboard here (but they are correcting a past error!), but it's better for them to overshoot than to undershoot and go out of bankrupt!
    3. It is NOT their driver. They can't be responsible if the driver's author chooses to rename itself and stop supporting its (old) product.
    4. Do you really prefer to pay c.$200 for each copy of Win 10 you need (similar to the past releases of Windows) rather than getting a significantly better OS free?

    Microsoft is certainly not perfect, in my opinion, but that doesn't mean they are a nefarious devil (as you seem to imply).

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-09-09T22:01:22+00:00

    Or they are just tired of patching vulnerable software that the original company doesn't even want to deal with anymore. No need to imagine some evil schemes.

    I guess the only solutions left are to see if Steam will accept the original product key or grab a no-CD crack from somewhere.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-09-09T22:00:14+00:00

    TeeNahMe,

    THANK YOU!!! That should save me considerable time/work. I'll try installing all the patches except that one.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-09-09T21:20:02+00:00

    Bioshock and Bioshock 2 both had very extreme DRM problems but if you own the disks your key is accepted by Steam. The old Prey also used disk checks and that key is accepted by Steam too.

    With large capacity hard disks its not a big deal with multiboot 2 or 3 different versions of Windows depending on what you need

    I have a few games that need Windows 98 but I have an old laptop I resurrected from the dead with a GPU I run that with Windows 98 and XP for antique games.

    I found on eBay a $5 EIDE adapter for compact flash, which makes Windows 98 run 1000x faster than ever imagined possible back then, the adapter uses up to 2 compact flash cards and I dual boot

    98 works up to 32GB safely, XP 128GB unless you have SP3 which can support 2TB max

    I have been considering helping VisualBox fix the problems for working with Windows 10 which also supports the GPU

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-09-09T19:04:29+00:00

    It appears you may be more true than speculative.

    As a "fix" for this "problem" with Windows 10, I resurrected an old laptop and re-installed Windows 7 as a platform for Civilization III and, eventually, IV. That worked fine until today. This morning there a slew of updates for Win 7, mostly "security" updates, which (as is my custom) I installed enmass. This afternoon when I clicked on the Civ III icon, basically nothing happened -- not even the opening screen. I painfully uninstalled all the "new" patches and rebooted (of course) and all is well -- Civ III came up and is running just fine. Apparently, Microsoft "fixed" Windows 7 to be more secure and not be able to run Civ II, presumably y disabling SECDRV.

    I will re-install the patches one at a time over the next several days to try to isolate which patch disables Civ III and reply to this post if I'm successful.

    Aaarrrrrggh!

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