Re: copy protection from hell

Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

"OldDog" wrote:

How can a person tell if they have the Starforce driver running on their pc? Would it be listed under applications running, if so, by what name? 

Because it is a driver and not an application, it does not show up in
the taskmanager applications list. However, you can check to see if it
loaded with Device Manager.

Press the Windows-key (next to ALT button) and Pause key (upper right
corner, usually third key to the right of the F12 key) at the same
time to summon up the System Properties window.

Click Hardware tab, then click "Device Manager" button

On the menubar, click "VIEW" then select "Show Hidden Devices"

Scroll down and expand the "Non-Plug and Play Drivers" tree.

If Starforce is installed, you will see it listed as something similar
to "Starforce protection software".

I don't have any StarForce driver here, at the moment, but thought i could mention that at the same place one can also find the related "SecDrv" (Macrovision's 'SafeDrive Copy Prevention System').

My SecDrv : Properties : Drivers : Startup : Type :
was set to 'Automatic' and the driver was started at every boot and running all the time.
I changed it to 'Demand' and now the "Current status" Status: shows it as 'Stopped' except for after having played a game using it. So it seems at least the game i was testing with is able to invoke the driver when /needed/ .

Maybe one can do the same for the 'StarForce Copy Prevention System' Driver? (For whatever it might be worth.)

In another subthread it was discussed that the StarForce driver runs in ring 0. How can one tell if a driver is run there or under ring 1? Is that perhaps inferred from it showing up under "Non-Plug and Play Drivers"?

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