ATTENTION: Please also read this
related post with important information about taking legal action against EA for installing this malicious software on your computer without your knowledge or consent.
SecuROM is a CD/DVD copy protection program that is intended to prevent software, music, and video piracy developed by Sony. SecuROM is is known to cause more issues than any other copy protection software, a simple Google search will provide you with all you need to know about this. Prior to Bon Voyage and (maybe) H&M Fashion Stuff, EA was using SafeDisc. Other games may have installed this, but if you have only Sims 2 games on your computer, it is likely that it was only installed when you installed Bon Voyage expansion pack or maybe H&M Fashion Stuff. Maxoid Sam did not authoratively say when EA started using SecuRom with The Sims 2 franchise.
SafeDisc CD/DVD copy protection program for Windows applications and games, developed by Macrovision Corporation; though SafeDisc protection effectively prevents regular home users from creating functional copies of CDs or DVDs, it is quite easy for skilled software crackers to bypass. The reason for EA's switch to SecuROM is pretty obvious.
SecuROM is highly controversial. It may interfere with the performance of Windows on any number of levels and is regarded by most security software firms (Symantec, CA, McAfees, etc) as "risky" or "dangerous". It has been known to interfere in the playability of games even when you have a legally purchased copy of the game. Additionally, SecuROM has not been very effective at preventing people from using illegally copied software, for example the copy protection on the game BioShock was cracked within ten days of release, the on-line activation measure that shipped with BioShock also seems to be mainly aimed at preventing lending and rental of the game. In the case of The Sims 2 Bon Voyage Expansion Pack, the cracked version was available the same day as release... go figure.
Removing SecuROM software will almost certainly render the game unplayable. I am not even certain if it can be safely removed.
ATTENTION: The following information is provided without any warranty or garuntee of any kind. Use it at your own peril. Make certain to make a back-up of your registry!
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. Uninstall the game as normal.
2. Manually delete the game directory (typically something like \Program Files\Atari\Crashday-demo\
3. Go to Start>Run and type "Services.msc" (without quotes) and press Enter.
4. Go to the 'Securom User Access' Service, double click on it, click Stop and then set it to Disabled.
5. Go to \Windows\System32\ directory and delete the UAService7.exe file.
6. 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:
7. Go to \Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\ and delete the SecuROM sub-directory.
8. 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.
However, this may not work for all users. Additional software may be required:
1. stop UAService7 service (CTRL+ALT+DEL, find it and kill it)
2. using e.g. Autoruns (
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Autoruns.html) remove this service and delete the file \windows\system32\UAService7.exe
3. delete the folder Documents and Settings\
\Application Data\SecuROM
4. delete the folder Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\SecuROM; in case of any deletion problems use DelInvFile tool
(http://www.purgeie.com/delinv.htm).
5. delete securom registry keys using regedit
6. key named HKLM\SOFTWARE\SecuROM\!CAUTION! NEVER DELETE OR CHANGE ANY KEY* contains embedded nulls and cannot be removed using regedit; use e.g. RegDelNull tool (http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/RegDelNull.html) instead of it.
SOURCES:
Wikipedia, EA The Sims 2 BBS, MATY, Sysinternals Forum, Eidos Games Forum, Google, and some Russian guy I know only as "Assassin"....
