Collector? You mean downloaded images yes?

Hi guys, just a recent story for you...

Last Friday an old schoolmate of mine gave me a phone call, saying his PC stopped booting, saying there was no OS installed. He has Windows 98 as well as Windows XP, with quite a lot of applications installed, but the most important part was the music and samples for his own pop band and some other bands he lends a helping hand to. (Yeah, yeah, as usual, no backups at all!)

The problem turned out to be in the boot area and the beginning of FAT1 on the first, FAT32-formatted partition. Many sectors were simply overwritten by some system-related data (chunks from extended CMOS, registry or Windows system memory?). With careful inspection and manual/semi-automatic repair, everything came back, none of the partitions reported any file system problems in Checkdisk/Scandisk afterwards. (Ridiculously enough, the software that repaired the overwritten areas properly was fsck.vfat from my old Red Hat Linux installation!)

In the meantime, my friend told me that the moment when the PC stopped booting was when he installed GT Legends, a Starforce-protected game, and allowed it to reboot the PC. Guess what, now he wants to get rid of the game completely and never try to install a Starforce-protected game on his PC again!

same prob
 

tried to make back up and mount image so i could use lma 2005 whitout disc (star force 3) computer chrashed original stoped working downloaded starforce nightmare and something else just to get game to work again . wont be buying star force games again:mad:

**** Starforce!!!!

Updated Starforce game list: I've found several different lists with Starforce games and added them to the existing list. All the games have been cross-referenced with GameCopyWorld. All the verified games are linked to the corresponding GCW page to obtain their no-cd crack :) . The non-verified games (games I couldn't find on GCW or that were listed in GCW with a non-starforce protection) have been placed in another list that follows.


List of verified Starforce games
7 Sins [3.4.71.19]
Anito: Defend A Land Enraged [1.x]
Afrika Korps VS Desert Rats [v3.3.31.21]
Bet on Soldier (no page exists on GCW)
Beyond Divinity [v3.x]
Blitzkrieg Rolling Thunder [v3.4.50.1]
Breed [3.3.33.06/3.3.33.08]
Chaos League [v3.x]
Codename: Outbreak (Russian) [1.x]
Codename: Panzers Phase One [v3.3.37.2]
Codename: Panzers Phase Two [v3.4.77.000]
Colin McRae Rally 2005 [v3.4.49.1]
Cossacks II Napoleonic Wars [v3.4.65.11]
Creature Conflict: The Clan Wars [v3.x]
Curse: The Eye of Isis [v3.x]
D Day [v3.4.41.1]
Domination
Etherlords 2 [v3.3.31.21]
Fire Chief: Fire Department [v3.x]
Gangland [v3.3.36.1]
Garfield
Gooka 2: The Mystery of Janatris
GTR: FIA GT Racing [v3.4.70.2]
I-Ninja
Kicker Manager 2004 [v3.03.036.001]
Kill.Switch [v3.3.33.8]
Korea: Forgotten Conflict [v3.3.27.36]
Maximus XV: Abraham Strong Space Mercenary [v3.x]
Medievil Lords [v3.x]
Obscure [v3.3.36.1]
Pac Man World 2 [v3.3.30.11]
Postal 2: Apocalypse Weekend
Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy [3.x]
Psychotoxic
Restaurant Empire
Restricted Area
Runaway: A Road Adventure [3.x]
Shade: Wrath of Angels [v3.4.53.0]
Silent Hunter III [v3.4.71.19]
Singles: Flirt up your life [v3.3.33.6]
Singles 2: Triple trouble
Soldiers: Heroes of World War II [v3.3.36.1]
Splinter Cell 3: Chaos Theory [v3.4.71.19]
Still Life
Street Racing Syndicate
Sudeki [v3.4.71.19]
SuperPower 2
The Black Mirror [v3.3.27.36]
The Fall: Last days of Gaia [v3.4.63.3]
The Moment of Silence
The Suffering [v3.3.37.2]
The Suffering 2: Ties that bind
TOCA Race Driver 2 / DTM Race Driver 2 [v3.3.35.2]
Track Mania [v3.03.035.004]
UFO: Aftershock [v3.5] (no page exists on GCW)
War and Peace
Will of Steel
Worms 4 Mayhem [v3.5.05.03]
WWII: Frontline Command [v3.3.0.26]
X3: Reunion [v3.5] (no page exists on GCW)
XIII (Russian)
Xpand Rally [v3.3.x.x]


List of non-verified Starforce games
(No URLS on GameCopyWorld / No info / Erroneous info / Not protected by Starforce. Note: This list contains a lot of non-english games, as they can't be found on GCW. Some games have different protections for each language they have been released in. E.g. Army Men English seems to be unprotected, whereas Army Men Russian seems to be protected with Starforce)

1944 Battle of the Bulge [N/A]
AceSaga [N/A]
American Conquest (Russian) [v3.x]
Anstoss 4 [v3.x] (GCW reports it is NOT protected by Starforce)
Area 51
Army Men (Russian) (GCW reports it is NOT protected by Starforce)
Asterix & Obelix XXL (GCW reports it is NOT protected by Starforce)
Bandits: Phoenix Rising [3.03.036.001]
Bet on Soldier
Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon (GCW reports it is NOT protected by Starforce)
Chaos League: Sudden Death (and Demo)
Club Football 2005
Chrome (Russian) [v3.x] (GCW reports it is NOT protected by Starforce)
Cossacks: Back To War [1.x] (GCW reports it is NOT protected by Starforce)
Cossacks: European War [v3.x] (GCW reports it is NOT protected by Starforce)
Counter Terrorist SF Fire for Effect (DVD) [v3.4.71.19]
Cross Racing Championship
Cycling Manager 3 [v3.x] (GCW reports it is NOT protected by Starforce)
Cycling Manager 4 [v3.3.36.1]
Demonic Speedway [v3.x]
Desert Rats vs. Afrika Corps [3.3.31.19]
Dead to Rights (3 CDs) [v3.3.37.26] (GCW reports it is NOT protected by Starforce)
Emergency Fire Response [v3.x]
Enigma: Rising Tide [v3.x] (GCW reports it is NOT protected by Starforce)
Etherlords [1.x] (GCW reports it is NOT protected by Starforce)
Fair Strike (2 CDs) [v3.3.33.3]
Fire Department 2
Gadget and the Gadgetinis
GT Legends (and Demo)
Heroes of Might & Magic IV: The Gathering Storm (Russian)
Horse Racing Manager[v3.x]
Icewind Dale 2: Heart of Winter [v3.x]
IL-2 Sturmovik [1.x]
League Manager 2005[v3.4.50.1] (Spanish)
Magna Carte/Carta (Korean) [1.x]
Magnamedia (Russian) [v3.x]
Mercedes-Benz World Racing (Spain) [v3.x] (GCW reports it is NOT protected by Starforce)
Might & Magic IX: Writ of Fate (Russia) (GCW reports it is NOT protected by Starforce)
Narsillion (Russia) [1.x]
Pax Romana [v3.3.30.11] (no information available)
Post Mortem (GCW reports it is NOT protected by Starforce)
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (Russia) [3.x] (GCW reports it is NOT protected by Starforce)
Pro Rugby Manager [v3.3.33.08]
Pro Rugby Manager 2
Rally Championship Xtreme (GCW reports it is NOT protected by Starforce)
Real Madrid Club Soccer (DVD) [v3.4.50.1] (Spanish)
Rendezvous 3 (Russian)
Revolution (GCW reports it is NOT protected by Starforce)
Scrapland [v3.4.50.1]
Second Sight
Seventh Seal (Asian)
Seventh Seal: The Resurrection of the Dark Lord (Asia) [2.x]
Shtyrlits 3: USSR Agent (Russian) [1.x]
Siege of Avalon (Russian) [1.x]
Silent Storm [3.x] (GCW reports it is NOT protected by Starforce)
Silkolene Honda Motocross [3.x]
Sniper (Poland) [3.x]
Tennis Masters Series: Battleground of Champions (Asian)
The Heroes of Three Kingdoms (Asian)
The I Of The Dragon (Russian) [v3.x]
The Kreed [v3.3.27.36]
The Westerner (French) [3.3.31.21] (GCW reports it is NOT protected by Starforce)
Traitor's Gate 2
UFO: Aftermath [v3.3.27.31] (GCW reports it is NOT protected by Starforce)
V8 Supercars 2 [v3.3.35.02]
Victoria: An Empire Under the Sun [v3.3.30.5] (no information available)
Virtual Skipper 3 (GCW reports it is NOT protected by Starforce)
Wildlife Park [v3.x] (GCW reports it is NOT protected by Starforce)
X2: The Threat [v3.3.30.5]
Xuan-Yuan Sword 4 (Asia) [v2.x]


Feel free to add any missing games to this list, or edit any mistakes found in it

Edit: Typos, a couple of games I forgot
Edit2: Added a couple of games from DABhand, thanks!
Edit3: Added some more links to GCW

Indian Buddha
 

We in india never buy any games original. all the big games are available in tons in certain locations in just 1 dollar each. I have bought one black mirror and played full until the suicide of the hero ( last scene) without a glimpse of starforce.I have seen the list on the top of the forum and i don't know which version of black mirror is star force protected? However if u can get a brand new oracle 11 i in 3 dollar and if the official price of a good game like cossacks 2 is 40 dollars, which covers food supply of a bachelor like me for half a month in india, will u buy any original?

But i am now working in Bahrain for last 1 year and missing indian pirates. too unlucky with cossacks 2. In my lifetime i have played many good games but never paid more than 2 dollar for a game. So long live hackers and crackers.
I do believe they will **** starforce in due course.

Oh dear :\ your stay didnt last long Dipang


@thebluegr


UFO: Aftershock = SF3.5
X3: Reunion = SF3.5

Thanks, added them to the list! :)

The new PC release of Namco Museum 50th Anniversary Collection also has Starforce and will not install properly. Sadly, this is how Namco ends up sharing the old classics with its customers.

Thanks to everyone here for the opportunity to keep up to date and express our views.

@Dipangshu: I agree with you but, unfortunately, this is NOT the right forum to discuss this. Actually, the discussion of warez is prohibited here so you might get banned for it...

ok good friend Joe, some people love to call the spade a spade.

want to know about starforce 3.4.65. how it works.
:confused: Can any body highlight it?

sf
 

Add bet on soldier to the list.

ive got an ORIGINAL The Suffering:Ties That Bind game and this crap tells me i dont have cd in drive :mad: ,cause they dont tested this **** on my LG cd-rw :eek: boycott this f****** **** :mad:

@Grumpy: Your petition convinced me to register at fileforums, add that to your "Good deed for the day" list :)

Petition signed.

BTW, why is this still not a sticky?

games with sf..
ehh
starforce is crackable whene its witout VM
if this one is with VM .. isnt crackable.. ( crackable but VERY HARD)
:(
heh sorry for my eng.. :)

Star Farce
 

Hi guyz and galz.

Just adding my tuppence.

I work in support IT for many homes and companies. Just recently however, I have found a distubingly large number of people who cannot get their games to work. Apart from Xmas being round the corner :D, I simply do not and cannot afford the resources to advise everyone who has brought one of the games with SF on it to take it back. several companies have refused to do this for some people.

http://new.petitiononline.com/starfarc/petition.html.

This is an online petition that I will present to the company on 25th December. A nice Xmas Present.

Of course, it will ask for your email but Hotmail is quite kewl nowadays! And besides, we're legal and just hacked orf with this incompetence :mad:

Out of interest I have now had 23 calls regarding this so, called software! I rue the day PC world set up nearby.

http://www.star-force.com/protection.phtml?c=83&id=657
PC Magazine Russian edition?? :eek:

Friends, gamers, countrymen, lend me your emails.

Dulce et decorum est.....................:D

this link of petition doesn't work!!

Petition
 

sorry, the previous link is an activation one!

Here is the proper one:

http://www.petitiononline.com/starfarc/

Thanks. Let's make it huge.

damn same :)

Heh
 

I also signed here just becouse of this thread & here are my thoughts :)

I bought Codename Panzers: Phase 2 as I own the Phase 1 and when install it on my pc, start it, then STARFORCE install it self and want to reboot. So I did that. Then wanting a dvd to play. And no matter what I did I couldnt get the game work (reinstall win, it works at my neighbour) so after 4 days I returned it to the store. :( Than I look at some forums and there is a lot of compatibility problems with starforce and a lot of complains. PETITION SIGNED!

And there is this thing with original games that you must have a cd/dvd in your cd/dvd rom to play the game. What a stupidity. Anyone have a software like Office, Acdsee, Nero etc... that would requaire a cd/dvd to use program. What would be like if Nero would give u a pop-up "Please insert Nero 7 Install CD in your burner to start the program" LOL following by "If you don't have another burner in your PC please go and buy your second burner and THANK YOU for buying this software"

BTW:Bill Gates please if you read this make windows need to use a cd in order to run! :)))

Informed consent
 

Abbie's idea that a 1-click EULA gives legal protection is flawed. There are several ways you could successfully argue that away in court. Wat protects publishers isd the vast disparity in resources between themselves and end-users.
Lack of informed consent kills the EULA, unless it specifically lists what it is doing wrt to planting drivers and lists all known/reportewd issues with them.
As far as the EULA principle itself, if you can demonstrate that the "average" person scrolls down and agrees without reading, to the satisfaction of the court, the the EULA concept is out the window, even if the info is in there.
Of course, this is all moot until someone challenges it in court. Any idle rich want a hobby-cause?

What can we do?
 

Wow. Great to see this. I purchased SCCT Collector's Edition and installed the game, this is when it came out. At the time I wasn't aware of Starforce, but thanks to forms and sites like these, I am now.

While looking on the ubi forms, I came across a sticky called 'Starforce and Solutions'. In this there is some admission to SF causing problems with certain applications and hardware. But there were three things that irritated me.

1) Problems with old drivers; update your firmware. Yeah and what if there isn't an update? Buy a new CD/DVD? Not likely, unless it was rendered useless, which was in my case, my LITE-ON DVD/RW (can't remember the rest) was /w with the latest and last firmware available :\

2) ..."Alc0hol 120%
DAEMON Tools
Clone CD
Nero (Disabled by Default)

If you experience issues with running the game disabling these applications can help."
The key words. -CAN HELP

3) The thread is closed. So they are right and you are wrong. Upon looking a little further in to the forms. They basically don't want to hear anything negative about their beloved SF virus/trojan.. what have you.

The topic can be found here: http://forums.ubi.com/groupee/forums...1/m/6811067603

So. What else can we do? Yes, for one, stop buying SF games. Make more people aware. Get the attention of someone with $$$ that cares enough to support our cause. From the ubi form, it appears obvious that they don't care if your system gets trashed and only supply very lame solutions.

i will boycot starforce protected games ;-)
 

But I hope that wont be needed much longer. Sony will be punished for what they did by installing background software on our systems and I hope the same will happen to those starforce devellopers. I mean: some stupid EULA does NOT give the right to grap control over our computers.
There IS a reason why the big publicers like EA, Rockstar and do NOT use starforce. And I just hope that other companies will follow those good examples.

The article at http://forums.ubi.com/groupee/forums...1/m/6811067603 fails to mention the following:
- How to "disable" virtual CD/DVD emulators? Uninstalling them to be able to play a game is not an acceptable solution; it's too much of a hassle, especially, that the settings, making their usage more comfortable, are also lost.
- Unlike the Starforce drive, the SecuROM 7 driver doesn't run all the time, therefore, it can't mess with your system when not playing games.

i played games when i was younger , now i dont have much time for it but when i find some useless free time i always like to spend it playing some game...there games starts...friend brought me around 10 DVDs with games and he left...the problem was that it was the first time after 2-3 years that i actually started to install some new games on my pc ( only game i play is q3 cuz i am pro-gamer :F ) and when i saw one file around 2.5 gb for quake4 and some strange files i was like WTF !?!?11 i called him immediatly and he tells me : "just dl daemon tools or alcohol , latest versions" i said ok and i did that...i instaled COD2 , installed q4..everything worked, everything was just fine...i told him also to get me some game for my 10 year old lil sister and it was I-NINJA, i tried to install it..i did...but no-cd error occured, first i thought there is some crack or something but no...then i phoned him and he tells me he dunno he was just dling =)) then i started google search for some solutions and i ended up here...now my lil sis is whining and my hands are tied up...i am saying guys that you have my full support just dunno where to sign that petition =)

@asdfas
So I presume you are talking about games your friend has downloaded and not talking about the original discs? Do you have the original discs?

quake4 and cod2 ye...q4 org i need cuz i play online ...same story with CoD2...i dont like playing single player :F
i have read from post 1 to the last post about starforce and i dont want to buy I-NINJA ..i am scared it could ruin my system...and no1 so far explained that to me what it is... =o

Yes, I am boycotting Starforce games

For what little bit it is worth, I am regularly complaining to Micros*** about why they are allowing Starforce protection to infest their operating systems and **** up peoples programs and apps.
I know it wont do any good but at least it makes me feel better. :o


Hurry up and die Starforce.............

I just read a bunch of pages on this topic but didn't finish all of them so I'm sorry if I repeat something that has already been said. It seems this topic is based on the legality of the protection. The companies could easily bypass this by adding a warning, I don't know who said it, but someone said Starforce should just have a pop-up that warns of its "side effects," along with this they should have to put something on the outside of the box, like system requirements they could state that your computer could not have certain programs, etc... By including all the information they could avoid any hassle. They would have to include all of the facts about Starforce. They would have to list every conceivable possibility, just like the pharmaceutical companies (this medication could cause heart explosion or brain aneuryism). The pharmaceutical companies have to do this because after many class action law suits they are legally liable. Until Starforce is beaten in court, and are forced to comply, they will never warn anyone of there program's shortcomings. Game companies also need to realize that if a game is good people will buy it. How many people bought GTA: San Andreas? And how many people could have pirated it? I'm not saying that a good game will never be pirated, but the majority of people who want it will buy it. If it's a quality product it will sell. In my opinion you are all justified in boycotting Starforce. Even if all they did was keep secret all the "extras" in their program, they should be liable. Unfortunately I don't think this petition will help much, like I said, if it's a popular game people will buy it. It seems you can't convince the masses.

I'm in
 

ARG! i hate SF, finally people have theior say about it!
i will NEVER BUY any SF games in my lafe, screw SF! hope the SF developers can read it and now know that they cause only harm to the games they protect! because now they are boycot:mad: :mad: :mad: death to SF!:mad:

Would be interesting to know how many who signed the petition are warez users who couldnt figure out how to play their ill gotten gains :P


I bet its a high number lol

Besides there's probably a high number of users who are tired of:
1.waiting minutes for a disc validation
2.booting and rebooting everytime they install a sf-protected game
3.loosing the complete control of their pc\os
4.having their hardware damaged by starforce virus (oooops, driver.)

Defeating piracy is not really a good excuse to not guarantee to legit users QUALITY and SAFETY anymore. A good protection shouldn't have hard&soft compatibility issues; if piracy "harms consumers as well as legitimate developers", Starforce harms "warez users as well as legitimate players".
And remember, even if in most cases to play backups it's needed to unplug ide drives, in some cases people who have original copies are obliged to buy new drives cause starforce broke theirs (The same thing happened to me with Still Life).
Go checking Ubisoft Official Forum: you'll read a lot of comments of people disappointed by the choice of SF3 for POP - The Two Trones: maybe they're all game downloaders, but does it really matter for an honest gamer who would like to play peacefully, already having to struggle with graphucz\control\etc. settings? I guess not, and that's why I'll go for the Xbox version of the game. But this is a compromise, not a solution. :mad:

As long as people don't discuss warez on this forum, noone has the right to - directly or indirectly - question the legality of their games. That's the reversal of forum rule #1 so, please, refrain from such comments.

I have boycotted starforce for years and will continue to do so as for wheather someone owns an orginal or warez. it anit anyones business but that person if they wanna uses warez gd luck to them:)

but i cant blame them when it comes to starforces:)

Someone talked about pirate games...

if the games were cheaper, it would force the pirate users to buy the original. Because a game is not only consist of a simple disc. it has manuals, support centers... some of them got maps, poster and so on. comparing these with a cd-r (with considering the cheap prices also), pirate user would think and buy the original. so game companies would sell the games to everyone. only change was pirates would **** themselves :D

Fact #1. Most people crack copy protections just for fun and pride, not to make money. (I do. ;) ) Whatever paysite owners, Chinese fake CD/DVD manufacturers or everyday warez users do with cracks is another story...

Fact #2. Today, it is very difficult to publish (even finish!) a game without a publisher. Developing a game costs a lot of time and money, and the publisher loans to the developer during this time period. In change, the developer gets like 2-5% percent of the profit (yeah, you read that right; I read this on this forum and got confirmed by a friend of mine, too!), the rest goes to the publisher and the vendor. A few developers do get their stuff publisher in online downloadable form (Live for Speed; games released via Steam), though, to get rid of the money-hungry publishers and vendors...!

As for fact #2, if you look closely, this is the same with music, as well: it is music publishers that get irrationally rich, not the actual artists that make the music. It is not only game business but the whole economy that is majorly f*cked up, because of only a few greedy millionaires and billionaires...

(Do I sound apocalyptic in such posts of mine?! :D)

This is fantastic. The starf**k boycott has really taken off. Every where I serf someones talking about boycotting SF, even on the SF forum itself. The publishers must be feeling the pinch by now, I know game developers are sick to the back teeth with it. Long live the death of StarForce. :D

i don't know, but i liked it :D

yep but it's gooooood :)

die starforce you f***ker may you rot in hell