Maxoid Sam

[dr.philthy]

Well, frankly I am just livid/terrified about this.
I was going to go buy BV today, but decided to hold off until after I am done my work for the day. Than I came here and read this, not to mention the link to the BBS and the horror stories over there. So many people over there are saying Securom has borked their whole pc!
I work from home, and my work and sims is on the same pc, including my un-backed up Quickbooks, all my thousands of spread sheets and other documents...GAH!!!(whines) I really wanted BV too. Now I for sure will not buy it, probably not ever, since EA will certainly never fix it by removing the Securom.
Probably hobbies and other eps and sps, if there are any more, will carry this nasty little surprise too.
I really hope people who've had to incurr expenses from this do file complaints and pursue a lawsuit. I don't know if they have a case, really, but maybe then EA will look at changing it's business practices, just a little, to accomodate it's customers. They've lost money from me and others, too.

[cookiepirate]

I've always used No-CD cracked .exes for The Sims, ever since the first expansion from Sims 1 busted up in my brand new DVD player, ruining it as well.  A very costly lesson, replacing the EP and my DVD player.  Never had a problem with using No-CDs, and won't play an expansion without it.

[Requip]

I don't know if the nocd crack is illegal

See, I don't think it is if you have the purchased box & Cd's? Every site I looked thru plus all the info I could find yesterday showed "DO NOT DOWNLOAD NO-CD CRACK FOR SOFTWARE YOU DON'T OWN" so I'm thinking, yea........it's illegal if you don't purchase the software/game first. I was online searching for info to make sure it was legal all day yesterday. :lol:

Then you can legally use the no-cd thing to "save wear & tear" on the CD's.    

[Rae Kira]

I wasn't having any major problems with SecuROM, but I did find it on my computer and I flipped shit. I don't have the money to be wasting on fucked up Sims games-- we don't have just any 40$ to spend. So, I wiped my computer. I like to wipe my compy once a year or so because of all the crap I torrent, but I didn't see the need to lately. Once this SecuROM paranoia started up, it hit me full force and I wiped right away.
Pissed me off even more now because it's in H&M? I really, really liked H&M. It would uninstall by itself, so I had to reinstall it about 5 times. I'm wondering if that is because of the SecuROM on it.

I'm Arring it, but I'm going to use my own key codes for the games I have. I pirate stuff all the time, but the Sims is just so important I never even thought about doing it before. And looky here, I'm getting all the missing expansions and stuff packs I didn't have before...  :twisted:

[LilyLocksley]

All this piracy talk and I saw this article this morning. Confused

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/10/riaa-jury-finds.html

Ha, I saw that on G4 last night before bed. What a load of shit. 200, ooo bucks for 24 songs, that may or may not have been downloaded by her.
I was just speechless that she got slammed with ten thousand dollars per song! Over at G4 people were talking about raising money for the poor woman. I mean yeah I don't have sympathy for people who download thousands of songs, and leave them in their shared folder, but come on just 24 songs? That is just pathetic. Things like that also make me worry, becuase I have hundreds of songs, very few of which I downloaded. Most of the ones I have downloaded are Japanese songs, That I either can't find here in the US or would cost me about 40 dollars a cd. The rest are burned from cds I have had over the years. Since I back up my music folder when I get a new computer, or have to reformat, I have a lot of songs left when the cds they came from have long ago bit the dust. I just wonder if I could get sued for having them, I don't share them though and it seems that they usually just go after people who share.


Anyways, back on topic. I think I will hold off on BV or and other Eps or SPs, because even a small risk is more than I want to take. I thought about getting the ARR version, but if somehow something happens I would be on my own, with no chance of getting anything from EA. Like I said before I doubt anyone will ever get anything from them anyways, but you certainly won't with the ARR version.

ETA: As for no cd cracks, I think they are fine, I used one back in the day before there were any expansions for TS2, because my CD drive had bit the dust. I may go ahead and ARR the stuff I don't have sometime down the road, but I will make sure my Pc is fully backed up and ready to be reformatted/ or restored.

[HawkGirl]

I don't know if the nocd crack is illegal - I haven't done it yet.  I don't like to do illegal thing though, so I'll have to research it - and see where my limits are.  

All the 12 year olds at the BBS are jacking me right off - "just reformat" - "not a big deal".  Yeah - maybe if all you have to protect are your pictures of Britney Spears.  I've got all the documents for my Ph.D. on there, my students' marks, or arrange for my rent to be taken out of my bank account.  I make burnt copies, but everyday I do some research or something else important online, and I shouldn't have to back up thousands of files just for the sake of some stupid program that doesn't protect them anyway.

I was reading that too. Twits act like they haven't a clue. I was also reading on another forum when I was researching this rootkit thing, and they were saying even the cracked versions of several games have this thing on them, and Sims was in the list. They do have a program that will force it to reveal itself on your HD, but it doesn't remove it. Then on another site they were talking about the reason Sony is loosing their butts over this, is that the removal progam they came up with just exacerbates the problems. Look below, I found a rootkit removal from AVG.

All their free software to protect our PC's, AVG has come up with nothing but a rootkit removal proggie free for our pc's.
http://www.grisoft.com/doc/download-free-anti-rootkit/us/crp/0
Wonder if we use this if we can still run H&M, BV, or Sims Deluxe?


More interesting reading.
http://tinyurl.com/y6txfd
Here you can read how the removal kit from Sony just opens up your PC even more causing more problems.

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3513_7-6361348-1.html
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/14/sony-anticustomer-te.html
Rootkits are black-hat hacker tools used to disguise the workings of their malicious software. Removing Sony's rootkit nukes your Windows installation.

[CaptainPirateNinja]

I used the rootkit revealer program and just found the fucker on my PC. It installed itself the same day I installed bon voyage.

So let's see how that AVG thing works...

[JFederated]

I don't know if the nocd crack is illegal - I haven't done it yet.  I don't like to do illegal thing though, so I'll have to research it - and see where my limits are.

It'll be interesting to see what out-illegals what - putting invasive and harmful programs on people comps without their knowledge or downloading an illegal crack that keeps people's comps safe.

All the 12 year olds at the BBS are jacking me right off - "just reformat" - "not a big deal".  Yeah - maybe if all you have to protect are your pictures of Britney Spears.  I've got all the documents for my Ph.D. on there, my students' marks, or arrange for my rent to be taken out of my bank account.  I make burnt copies, but everyday I do some research or something else important online, and I shouldn't have to back up thousands of files just for the sake of some stupid program that doesn't protect them anyway.

I hear that, Cala.  They are confusing system restore with reformatting in a lot of cases over there, but yeah!  Reformatting as the "only way" to ditch SecuRom is hellaciously bad advice, imo; it's panicky and from what I've been reading, likely unnecessary...at the moment, anyway.

I just remembered that my Comcast internet software disappeared on me a couple weeks ago - after installing BV.  I have it all up and running again, but it was odd (and could've been due to a Windows update that night that I wasn't quick enough to stop).  I think that's the reason I'm waiting and oddly calm:  I don't know what's doing what or not.

HG - thanks for that info.  I'm not about to trust EA or Sony to actually fix this properly, the way WE want them too.

[LilyLocksley]

Thanks for that info Hawk Girl, I think I will just manage without BV or any thing else EA puts out. I also wont be allowing my husband to get Bioshock, or anything else unless we know what kind of protection the disks come with.

[redisenchanted]

I was reading that too. Twits act like they haven't a clue. I was also reading on another forum when I was researching this rootkit thing, and they were saying even the cracked versions of several games have this thing on them, and Sims was in the list. They do have a program that will force it to reveal itself on your HD, but it doesn't remove it. Then on another site they were talking about the reason Sony is loosing their butts over this, is that the removal progam they came up with just exacerbates the problems. Look below, I found a rootkit removal from AVG.

All their free software to protect our PC's, AVG has come up with nothing but a rootkit removal proggie free for our pc's.
http://www.grisoft.com/doc/download-free-anti-rootkit/us/crp/0
Wonder if we use this if we can still run H&M, BV, or Sims Deluxe?


More interesting reading.
http://tinyurl.com/y6txfd
Here you can read how the removal kit from Sony just opens up your PC even more causing more problems.

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3513_7-6361348-1.html
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/14/sony-anticustomer-te.html
Rootkits are black-hat hacker tools used to disguise the workings of their malicious software. Removing Sony's rootkit nukes your Windows installation.

Thanks Hawkgirl, the AVG kit looks promising. I bet if it works to remove SecuRom, we will no longer be able to play the games that shipped with it.

[HawkGirl]

I was reading that too. Twits act like they haven't a clue. I was also reading on another forum when I was researching this rootkit thing, and they were saying even the cracked versions of several games have this thing on them, and Sims was in the list. They do have a program that will force it to reveal itself on your HD, but it doesn't remove it. Then on another site they were talking about the reason Sony is loosing their butts over this, is that the removal progam they came up with just exacerbates the problems. Look below, I found a rootkit removal from AVG.

All their free software to protect our PC's, AVG has come up with nothing but a rootkit removal proggie free for our pc's.
http://www.grisoft.com/doc/download-free-anti-rootkit/us/crp/0
Wonder if we use this if we can still run H&M, BV, or Sims Deluxe?


More interesting reading.
http://tinyurl.com/y6txfd
Here you can read how the removal kit from Sony just opens up your PC even more causing more problems.

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3513_7-6361348-1.html
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/14/sony-anticustomer-te.html
Rootkits are black-hat hacker tools used to disguise the workings of their malicious software. Removing Sony's rootkit nukes your Windows installation.

Thanks Hawkgirl, the AVG kit looks promising. I bet if it works to remove SecuRom, we will no longer be able to play the games that shipped with it.

You know what I don't have rootkit on my PC. I used that reveal thingy and it's not there. I just came back to give the results of my AVG scan and it didn't find it there either. Now I'm wondering if that's why I had so many problems with BV and had to remove it right away. I have AVG internet Security package. If this rootkit thingy is already incorporated in their software it may not have allowed it to install? Which caused me to have to uninstall and reinstall BV but it still wouldn't work right.

[Apsalar]

I tried the AVG anti-root kit thingy but it didn't find anything on my Vista computer even though I know Securom is there. It is possible that it just doesn't recognize Securom as a root kit - or doesn't notice it at all - or it's Vista's fault. Either way, I know it's there, but this anti-root kit didn't find it.

[LilyLocksley]

The Avg thing found one on my computer, no idea what it came from, so I am going to set up a system restore the nuke the thing.


ETA: It may not show the secuROM, since it is not technically a root kit, at least according to Sony, but it acts like one. So basically a piece of shit by any other name is still am piece of shit(IMO)

[Requip]

That AVG root finder didn't find them on mine. But I know exactly where they are and they're still there.  :evil:

Under regedit, under HKEY_USERS, under S-1-5-21-49....blah, blah, under Software and scroll down to Securom. Ta-da  :?

I'm so pissed off because I'm afraid of what will happen if I remove them via any other method.

[blumchen]

Thanks for link HawkGirl. I  just tried the AVG root set-up, and it found nothing. I know I have securom, as I found it in my registry. I have filed a complaint with the BBB, and I'll see what happens. My computer freezes up constantly now, and during game play. I will no longer purchase any EA games.