Pac-Man World 2 not working on Windows 7 - due to Starforce, any crack available?

[FahrenheitDegree]

Dear FileForums community,

I would like to play Pac-Man World 2 on my laptop but I cannot - simply because the StarForce copy protection driver cannot be installed properly and demands a new installation of itself after every required system restart.

Having searched to whole fix index on gcw, I have not come across any real solution to this issue - the mini images offered still require the driver to be on the system - which is simply impossible.

StarForce itself is well aware of its old drivers' incompatibility with Windows 7 and recommends to get in contact with the publisher of the protected software in such cases:

Protection versions below 5.5 do not support Windows 7.
Users of products that protected with 3.x/4.x/5.0 versions should contact the protected program developers or publishers to obtain Windows 7 patches, or use previous Windows version to run the products.

StarForce offers FREE re-protection for all the developers and publishers of the programs that utilize version below 5.50 to release the appropriate patches. Please contact your sales manager for re-protection and further details.*

Protection versions 5.5/5.6 partially support Windows 7.
Due to constant changes within Windows 7 during its development process some 5.5/5.6 builds may not fully support this OS. In case of failure please update the protection driver through the protect.exe utility or use a protected program developer's patch to be able to run the protected programs in Windows 7.

StarForce offers FREE re-protection for all the developers and publishers of the programs that utilize version below 5.50 to release the appropriate patches. Please contact your sales manager for re-protection and further details.*

Protection versions 5.7 and above are fully support Windows 7.
There is no need for any additional actions.

Windows 7 support is implemented for both 32 and 64-bit versions.

http://www.star-force.com/support/users/windows7/

The problem now is that Hip Interactive who published Namco's game for PC does not appear to exist any longer - whom should I contact now?

Is there anyone out on these boards who could probably take a look at this issue and remove the protection?