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

• Also in agreement with lexluther.  Bad enough that MS built DRM Blocking into Win10, but they were also heartless installing

DRM Blocking on Win7/8/8.1 machines subversively in the guise of 'security'. I have yet to hear of a malware using secdrv.sys

to hide in.

As with GFWL, MS took the cheapskate way out and jumped ship, with total disregard for people who still play games affected

by the GFWL debacle or SafeDisk driver. Rather than make a 'deal' with the developers of SafeDisk they decided to dump on the gamers,

and try to flog the games again on line.

The Windows Store is badly broken, but the secdrv.sys issue alone is enough to keep me from ever venturing to the Windows Store regardless.

• Fortunately for those with a large collection of disk based games hackers cracked the .exe's of the majority of game protection systems

long ago, so the users, and collectors of older disk based games don't have to buy those games that are still available

online from MS's Store, or their friends at Steam, etc.  They  do still run well on Win10.

• Most games from MS did use SafeDisk, including AOE 2, but AOE 3 uses SmartIE copy protection, as do a number of other

MS games (not sure why Hardcore referenced this game in response to lexluther).

• It may be because I patched the game, but it will run on Win10 without a disk in the drive, and does not need a noCD fix to do so.

The Asian Dynasties expansion does however require a noCD to run without using the disk. (Or maybe I missed the patch ? )

.

Microsoft does provide a way to re-enable SECDRV.

• Install a game that brings (a recent version of) SECDRV.sys.
• Install the Windows 10 SDK from Get the standalone Windows 10 SDK. Just install all components, cuz who cares.
• Start PowerShell as Administrator.
• Find makecat.exe, makecert.exe and signtool.exe and add the path to your PATH:

dir -Directory -Path 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10' -Recurse |

where BaseName -eq "x86" |

where { (dir $_.FullName -Filter makecert.exe) -ne $null } |

where { (dir $_.FullName -Filter makecat.exe) -ne $null } |

where { (dir $_.FullName -Filter signtool.exe) -ne $null } |

select -First 1 |

foreach { $env:Path = "$env:Path;$($_.FullName)" }

• The ones in a x86 subfolder are always OK on all Intel architecture chips. No need to match the hardware or the OS bitness.
• Create a new folder, copy SECDRV.sys in it. If it's an old version, use this one here. Its from September 2006.

mkdir "$env:USERPROFILE\Downloads\SECDRV" | Out-Null

cd "$env:USERPROFILE\Downloads\SECDRV"

• If it's an old version, use this one here. Its from September 2006.

curl -UseBasicParsing -Uri "https://github.com/ericwj/PsSecDrv/raw/master/tools/SECDRV/SECDRV.sys" -OutFile "SECDRV.sys"

• Enable test signing boot mode.

bcdedit /set "{current}" testsigning on

• Pick a subject for the certificate.

$Subject = "SECDRV.sys signing for $env:USERDOMAIN$env:USERNAME on $("{0:dd-MMM-yy HH:mm}" -f [datetime]::Now)"

• Create a root certificate.

makecert -r -sr LocalMachine -ss My -n "CN=$Subject"

• Open Local Machine Certificates.

certlm.msc

• Go to Personal, Certificates and select the certificate created, there usually is only one, or match the subject, right click Copy.
• Go to Trusted Root Certification Authorities, Certificates. Paste.
• Go to Trusted Publishers, Certificates. Paste.
• Make a text file called SECDRV.cdf in the folder and put this in it.

[CatalogHeader]

Name=SECDRV.cat

PublicVersion=0x1

EncodingType=0x00010001

CATATTR1=0x10010001:OSAttr:2:6.0

[CatalogFiles]

<hash>SECDRV=SECDRV.sys

• Make a driver catalog file in the folder.

makecat -o SECDRV.txt -r SECDRV.cdf

• Sign the driver. Use the thumbprint as shown in certlm for the certificate created, just double click it and look around, without spaces. Or get it in PowerShell with dir:

$Cert = dir Cert:\LocalMachine -Recurse | where Subject -Match ([regex]::Escape($Subject)) | select -First 1

$Thumbprint = $Cert.Thumbprint

signtool sign /sm /s Root /sha1 "$Thumbprint" /t "http://timestamp.verisign.com/scripts/timstamp.dll" secdrv.cat

• Install the driver.

signtool catdb /u secdrv.cat

• Reboot.
• Test if it works.

sc.exe start secdrv

If it doesn't work,

• one reason is the SECDRV.sys on your system is too old. Then the driver doesn't start.
• Another reason is Secure Boot is enabled. Run bcdedit again after disabling it.
• Another reason is you didn't reboot. You will have to reboot.
• On 64-bit systems, SECDRV might still report 'This driver is blocked from loading' if it is configured with C:\Windows\SysWOW64\drivers\SECDRV.sys as the binary path. To 1) verify and fix this, 2) copy SECDRV.sys and 3) change the binary path of the driver service:

sc.exe qc secdrv

copy C:\Windows\SysWOW64\drivers\SECDRV.sys C:\Windows\System32\drivers

sc.exe config secdrv binpath= C:\Windows\System32\drivers\SECDRV.sys

In PowerShell, don't omit the ".exe." in sc.exe. Nothing will appear to happen, but you will have ended up with a file called "start", "qc" or "config" that contains the text "secdrv" because sc is short for Set-Content...

Now play games.

For anyone curious, Medieval 2 Total War does not work on Windows 10 because of this issue, but for some reason, the Kingdoms expansion pack does.

Since the kingdoms.exe is used for most mods, and not the medieval2.exe, the game can run perfectly fine. In fact, the "Grand Campaign" of the medieval2.exe exists as a mod called "Bare Geomod" by Gigantus.

This game somehow scrapes through, but earlier games in the series are not so lucky. Users will be forced to install dreaded Steam, should they wish to play them.

I have the free version of AOL so I don't know if it makes a difference . Also the problem I'm having is different in that if I click on "mail " it simply drops me off and asks me to sign in again over and over !! I never get to mail in the AOL home page to begin with !! . Interesting enough,  I can read and send AOL from the start window " mail " ( blue mail box )  as well as the Google search menu bar( aol ) at the top of the google search page . As for Susans fix , My AOL  desktop  doesn't even look like her example and there is no " startup-settings "  to click on the bottom right ?? Just for the heck of it I decided to jump ahead just to see if I could see " aol desktop 9.7 "  or any AOL file for that matter on the C: drive files / program (x86) and I don't find AOL in any files !!! . Obviously AOLl is buried somewhere in my C: drive otherwise I wouldn't even be able to get on it . Thinking of going back to windows 8 because not only is there this aol problem but windows 10 is not compatible with my MS flight simulator 2004 .

Hey Ben890, 

See if you can delete the user profiles from your Users folder.  That worked for me and allowed me to roll back.  Best of luck.