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

It seems Nickellys is on the right track with the driver signing being the true issue with your software.

There is also an option to disable driver signing -

how-to-disable-driver-signature-verification-on-64-bit-windows

Selecting Windows XP SP 3 was sufficient to have the software running."

This should have nothing to do with DRM Blocking. Using Compatibility for an older OS sometimes helps to get

older software up and running.

It's only when there is a secdrv.sys  file on the disk that DRM Blocking  rears it's evil ugly head.

• From what I've seen, games with either  SecuROM or SafeDisc have the secdrv.sys file on the disk.

Games or software without this file on the disk will not be blocked by the MS malware.

You may well have  SECDRV.sys file in your Win10 install (mine is in sysWOW64), but DRM Blocking does not

prevent it's installation, only activation (fortunately for users of older software and games).

"One more point : the "sc config secdrv ..." or "sc start secdrv" commands  work normally on my computer but receive an error message "service has been blocked" on the other computer."

How you are able to circumvent DRM Blocking on a Win10 machine is a mystery.

I hadn't tried the commands with Win10 as the support page with the commands only refers to Win8/8.1,

but when I tried them a minute ago the command was blocked. Which seems to confirm that

DRM Blocking is well and truly integrated into Win10 (using 1511 update, atm).

• Regarding 32 vs 64 bit. 

Prior to the DRM Blocking issue, there are also a few instances of various DRM which don't recognise

64bit OS's as legitimate.

I have at least one game with what may have been more notorious than even SecuROM - StarForce

('protect.dll' ) - which will not will not allow the game to load on any 64bit OS

(with an error message something to the effect of  Win7 not being recognised as a legitimate OS).

• I recall another game or two that would do something in relation to the DRM on rebooting the machine.

I don't recall the details (they were installed on Win7 years ago), but a noCD is required to run these games.

Games released between '04 - '06 are the most likely to have (non-Win10 DRM Blocking) DRM issues,  such as these.

• Just two examples of how DRM punishes the legitimate user (or used to, as it's all on line one user activation

these days - say goodbye to second hand games ). Meanwhile the pirates laugh at the copy protection attempts. There can be times when a pirate is an honest persons hero.

.

KB3086255 is the culprit. Stay away from 10 go back to Windows7 and delete this update. Since I did that Age of Empires works just fine.

Thanks. That's the answer I needed.

32 bit vs 64 bit?

From my experience, works on 32 bit it Win 10 in compatibility mode, won't work on Win 10 64 bit because the driver isn't recognised as a signed driver (but it was OK in Windows 8.1 64 bit on the same machines .......)

Yes, the software  I'm using requires the DVD to be mounted. It is SafeDisk 4 protected and there are no cracks in the field for this type of software ;-) 

As far as "run as admin" is concerned, I didn't need to check this option in the compatibility mode window. Selecting Windows XP SP 3 was sufficient to have the software running.

I just don't know if for other types of protection (SecuRom ...) it would have worked. Probably not.

I am not sure games are specially targeted by MS. To be complete, let me tell you the whole story : I was involved in this problem on request of a friend running W7. KB3086255 was issued in november 2015 and his software didn't work any more due to disabling by MS of secdrv driver (but we didn't know it yet). So I proposed him to try it on my computer which was already migrated to W10. Good news ! Running the software in compatibility mode under W10 was ok on my computer. So we decided to migrate his computer to W10. On his machine, no way to have the DVD application running. I have been through all the errors you described : compatibility popup, run with admin right, nothing happening ... I installed the secdrv driver from my computer to his computer, updated the registry. Nothing did the job. So I totally agree with you when you write :

"Many many people have been left very confused, and disappointed after seeing this bogus 'run as admin' error, only find using that option does not help ...". This happens unfortunately too often. 

Having no time to deepen the question we finally tried VirtualBox with an XP virtual machine, which was ok, but prefered to reverse to W7.

So the question is : why a SafeDisk 4 protected DVD can run in compatibility mode without any problem under W10 on one computer and not on another one which is also under W10 ? Is it configuration dependent (32 bits versus 64 bits machine)? Is there a hole in W10? Is it because I installed this DVD from scratch on my computer and on the other computer the software was migrated ? Is it because the other computer was already in Threshold 2 ? Soon I'll give another try to this and hope to find at least a clue !

One more point : the "sc config secdrv ..." or "sc start secdrv" commands  work normally on my computer but receive an error message "service has been blocked" on the other computer.