Back in the middle of the Sony bullschnitzel again!!!

[Rockin Robbins]

I thought I was through with the urination match between Sony and Mark Russinovich. With patch 1.3 Ubi saw the light and realized that punishing the innocent was not going to protect their precious software, right? With patch 1.3, Ubi realized that getting in the middle of Sony and Mark Russinovich throwing stuff (you can insert your own smelly substance) at each other did nothing to help the sales of Silent Hunter Wolves of the Pacific.

Imagine my delight when after paying $10.00 to download the U-Boat Missions add-on, (before which there was no warning that by doing so I lost dominion over my own property to do what is lawful) I was greeted with this:

Now Process Explorer is a useful program, written by Mark Russinovich of Microsoft, Inc, as a slightly more capable replacement for the Windows Task Manager. In no way is it related to software piracy, any more than Windows Defrag is. This is a plain vanilla utility distributed by Microsoft.

But Mark Russinovich was the man who exposed Sony's dangerous, unethical, disrespectful of ownership rights of computer owners, music CD Windows Rootkit. This was a hidden routine on Sony music CD's which installed itself on your computer when you merely played the CD. It did so without your consent. It hid itself by modifying Windows so that no process could show this software or the hidden section of your property it lived in. It was a virus of the worst kind, converting your property into Sony's without your consent. It then disabled Windows processes for copying CD's and DVD's, just so you would be delighted. Then, because all bad guys tend to know about each other's nefarious projects, virus writers began writing viruses that hid in this inaccessible, undetectable part of your hard drive, invisible to virus scanners and impossible to remove, even if you could prove they existed.

Mr Russinovich is a true hero, who exposed this slimeball corporation for doing what it does best, screwing customers. He personally cost Sony dozens of millions of dollars. People should have gone to prison.

When Ubi removed the SecurROM protection with patch 1.3, it looked like they realized that association with criminals (even though Sony and its directors have avoided criminal prosecution so far) tainted their company as well. It's not true. SecuROM is back, hindering no pirate but trying to dictate to me whether I will use harmless, legitimate software on my machine.

This is wrong. It is rooted in a lack of respect for me and you as customers. It is converting our property for their own use against our wishes. This is a tort at least and a crime at worst. I am very disappointed that Ubi, which had done all the right things up until now, would jump back into bed with these hoodlums.

Other than that, I'm fine. I've just wasted $10.00 for something I may not be able to use. I'll take Process Explorer out of my startup folder and see if, like last time, it searches my hard drive and registry, finds it and then informs me that unless I remove Process Explorer from my machine Silent Hunter will not run.

If that happens, I'm writing Mark Russinovich at Microsoft. He's much better at raising hell than I am and Sony will recongize the return of their friend.

Shame on you Ubi! You have Sony's excrement smeared all over you.

[Rockin Robbins]

Well, it is little, but good news nevertheless. Silent Hunter 4 will not search your registry and hard drive to detect whether Process Explorer is installed. It only rifles through your running processes list. I have not restarted Process Explorer yet to see whether SH4 continues to waste processing cycles in a continuing effort to eliminate a harmless, legal, helpful Microsoft utility from your property. Stay tuned.

[AVGWarhawk]

I did just a general seach of files and folders. I came up with SecuROM installed on 3/22/2007. From what I recall, we were advised SecuROM was to be used for SH4. It is in there just like Starforce was with SH3. We all know what happened to DVD drives, etc with that install. What is being taken away from Windows by install SecuROM? If I still have this on my machine from 3/07 then patch 1.3 did not remove this.

[Reece]

I suppose you can't tell if it's in your computer, I did a search & found "SecuROM" in the registry linked to a game I have called FEAR! I initially had it installed with SH4 but assumed, like others, it was removed with 1.3, is this virus likely to be installed and running on my machine?
I thought this was a Russian virus like starforce, I had no idea it was owned by Sony, for shame!

[danlisa]

Considering SH4 no longer needs this protection or indeed uses it, remove it as I have (provided no other games you use need it).

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. Go to Start>Run and type "Services.msc" (without quotes) and press Enter.
2. Go to the 'Securom User Access' Service, double click on it, click Stop and then set it to Disabled.
3. Go to \Windows\System32\ directory and delete the UAService7.exe file.
4. 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:

5. Go to \Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\ and delete the SecuROM sub-directory.
6. 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.

I hate intrusive copy protection.

[Rockin Robbins]

This doesn't even qualify as copy protection. It allows CD drive emulation software, which pirates love to use (and is also very useful lawfully as well), but picks on a Microsoft utility because of a personal feud with a consumer warrior.

Ubi smells very bad right now and needs to issue a patch to remove this abomination. Actually Ubi should do that and then sue Sony for damage to the reputation and integrity of Ubi.

The worst part of intrusive copy protection is that it only punishes the innocent. The pirates have already defeated it and are turning out unprotected copies by the thousands, all over the world. It is only those of us who pay money to Ubi, support SUBSIM and help Ubi retain dissatisfied customers that are punished by this putrid piece of software, which we neither agreed to purchase nor gave permission to invade our property. It is a carjacking. Someone should be arrested and spend time in prison for perpetrating this act which should be and most likely is a crime.

Is it any wonder I refuse to buy any Sony products? I'll live without high def DVD until their equipment rots. It won't be necessary for very long anyway. Just with my family alone, Sony has cost themselves several thousands of dollars for their stupidity. Their disdain for their customers stinks.