Starforce won't let me start the game with the disc. Licensed games are dangerous: hacking StarForce as a way to save your computer

A week before the release, more people downloaded than original licensed copies were sold in the first days of the game's appearance on store shelves. This is how online piracy is affecting the gaming industry today. This may seem surprising at first glance, but piracy hits the gaming industry harder than the music industry, since the financial situation of the gaming industry is much more precarious.

This precariousness lies in the fact that the game project “recaptures” the lion’s share of costs in the first 2-3 weeks of sales. If, thanks to hacked pirated versions, initial sales are low, the game is almost certainly a financial failure.

The abbreviation "DRM", which stands for Digital Rights Management, immediately brings to mind an "arms race" between pirates and developers who want to protect content from hacking. Of course, pirates who hack computer games have much more knowledge than pirates who release music or films. To successfully hack a game, a whole organized group is required, some of which remove the protection, while others distribute the products on the Internet or publish them on pirated discs.

Previously, competitions between groups of pirates over who would be the first to release a game were of purely sporting interest, but lately, of course, financial support has come to the fore. And when hacking protection like StarForce, pirates pursue purely financial goals.

Often the video game industry overestimates the impact of piracy, believing that each download of a game can be equated to a loss of revenue from one copy sold, or even from several copies sold. On the other hand, some users download or buy a cheap pirated version to try, and if the game turns out to be worthy of attention, the gamer also buys a license to clear his conscience. But whatever the motives of gamers, piracy is a serious problem.

The global video game industry generated nearly $8 billion in revenue last year. The figure is impressive, but we should not forget that the margins in the video game industry are such that companies cannot afford such large losses as, for example, the music industry experiences from online piracy. The only thing that eases the suffering of the gaming industry: games are much larger than music, so stealing them over the Internet is not so easy. Especially in Russia, where fast access channels are not yet widespread enough. While many users collect entire libraries of stolen music on their hard drive, this is no longer the case with games.

Colin McRae Rally 2005 is protected by StarForce.

But it also has its own characteristics. The video game industry is quite quick to respond to pirates. In the good old days of DOS toys, game developers used very primitive copy protection methods. Let's say the requirement is to find a word in a manual on a specified page in a specified line. When CD-ROMs appeared, the game required the original disc in the drive to run, as well as the CD key being entered during installation. Both of these methods have long been unable to protect publishers and developers from piracy. Any algorithms can be hacked - it doesn’t matter whether it’s hardware disk protection or StarForce.

It's understandable that game developers and publishers want to protect their products, often with new, more intrusive security methods. Moreover, some methods turn out to be very dubious. Just one of these protections – mentioned several times above StarForce (www.star-force.ru), created by Russian developers. By the way, StarForce is also the most common protection for licensed discs, used in Russia and the CIS countries.

Hacking StarForce is not necessary to harm your PC

This is what the StarForce driver looks like in the system.

What kind of protection is this? Is it possible and how difficult is it? StarForce hack? “Advanced encoding and activation technology for CD/CD-R/DVD and electronic software distribution,” is how the developers describe their system. But the way StarForce and some similar security systems carry out their tasks is one of the most intrusive and dubious. To run the game you need to install it on the system special StarForce driver, which is not deleted when the game is uninstalled and remains on the computer.

StarForce, together with other domestic companies, advocates for protection against piracy and destroys counterfeit products.

The StarForce driver very persistently tries to reinstall itself after manual removal or uninstallation using a utility that can be found on the Internet.

New protection systems do more than just protect software from running pirated copies. They often proactively look for potentially dangerous programs (from an anti-piracy perspective) on the system and prevent them from running. Good examples include programs like Nero, Alcohol 120% and Virtual DAEMON Manager versions below 4.00, although we have encountered other, more aggressive and severe symptoms of the behavior of such protections. These range from disabling recording devices in Windows Media Player to denying access to the CD drive, both in software and hardware. Sometimes the author pressed the drive button in vain to eject the tray: only restarting Windows helped.

Recall that the specific specifications of How Such systems work and are kept secret. For obvious reasons. But the results of the operation of such systems are not a secret to anyone and may be Very destructive. Some users even have to reinstall the system after failures of such protections.

In an interview with the Firing Squad website, the creators of the StarForce protection stubbornly did not acknowledge the fact that the driver causes problems, if not for all, then for some user systems. Keeping silent about the fact that even an unhacked StarForce can lead to problems is not the best policy for developers.

Here's what StarForce Technologies wrote to us: " To combat code reversal, we use a unique encryption system for executable application components. However, the greatest resonance is caused by the StarForce protection drivers, the presence of which makes it possible to reduce to almost zero the ability to freely emulate pirated images of licensed disks downloaded from the network, i.e. effectively resist home copying and replication of discs.". This is only part of the letter sent to our editor. The goal was to invite us to conduct an independent examination of the operation of the StarForce driver. If such an examination is done, we will publish additional material.

But today the results of an informal investigation available to us suggest that 30-40% of users had any(not necessarily fatal) problems associated with StarForce protection. On the other hand, we can responsibly state that no one The licensed disc from those protected by StarForce, received by our editorial staff from domestic publishers, has never caused any problems in our editorial configuration. Isn't it strange?

Questionable legal protection of StarForce

Another point is also important. The User License Agreement (EULA) covers the publishers and developers of the security system from any liability arising from damage caused by the security system. In other words, “we guarantee that problems will not arise, but if they do, please re-read the license agreement.”

Our international editorial staff consists of gaming journalists who often encounter defenses like StarForce and Macrovision. While writing game reviews, they had problems with protections here and there. When security system developers claim that no problems arise, they only have to agree with this, once again restoring the system.

Interestingly, similar protection systems are found in an increasing number of video games, but despite all the troubles for the end user, they do not really save the situation. We have seen many pirated copies of games where the protection is simply removed, and hacked exe files immediately appear on the Internet. It's funny that pirated versions do not have any protection, so playing them is much calmer and easier. And your computer will not suffer from the possible harmful effects that the protection driver could cause to the systems of legitimate users. Another not very pleasant feature of StarForce protection, which is essential for domestic gamers with their slow Internet: the fixes that developers release after the release of games, in most cases, must carry pieces of the protection code. Sometimes very “solid” - up to several tens of megabytes. This is where your Internet traffic subscription fee goes.

The day may well come when copy protection will cause enough damage to users' computers to attract the attention of the courts (they love this case in the US). And whether security developers can hide behind a license agreement is a moot point. In the meantime, if your computer begins to behave differently after installing the game, look to see if a couple of hidden drivers have appeared on it. The same StarForce.

Hacking StarForce through the eyes of the press service

Recently, StarForce protection, which many experts assess as potentially dangerous, has attracted a lot of attention. The protection made headlines after the company threatened to sue journalists reporting on the protection's harmful effects on the system. In a letter to us, StarForce representatives write: “However, we are under great pressure from competitors and the pirate community, who are conducting large-scale PR campaigns online aimed at discrediting our defense and the entire company. We believe that the best solution at the moment would be independent testing. I would like to note that exactly Western consumers are the target audience for such research."

Keygen for StarForce: according to the developer - a useless utility.

It is difficult for us to imagine PR campaigns sponsored by pirates and those who make money by hacking and deleting StarForce. But the developers are certainly right in believing that independent testing is the right solution. On the other hand, firstly, not a single “hardware” laboratory in the world, be it Tom’s Hardware Guide, iXBT or “Computer”, is able to provide full independent testing on thousands of different hardware and software configurations, and in -secondly, interesting statistics on StarForce have already been collected and continue to be collected. We invite those who use games protected by StarForce to leave their opinion in ours. Perhaps this will determine how your PCs will work in the future. After all, you shouldn’t have a separate computer. for games?

The game "Blitzkrieg 2" is protected by StarForce.

Yes, StarForce is a very aggressive anti-piracy protection that installs a hidden driver (!) into the system in parallel with the installation of the game. This driver, according to information Boycott StarForce, "gives level zero (system level) privileges to any code running at level three (user level).

Thus, with the help of a protection driver, any virus or Trojan can gain operating system privileges and completely take over control. Since the days of Windows NT/2000, operating systems of the Windows line have provided high stability and security due to the separation of privileges, but with StarForce drivers, the old “holes” and instability of Windows 9x/Me systems return to normal, and any program (or virus) can reach to the core of your system, using the StarForce drivers as a backdoor."

The methods used by the StarForce defense also lead to more direct and tangible problems, both for gaming journalists and for ordinary users who storm the technical support forums and enroll in the StarForce boycott campaign (this can be done). We wrote a little higher that our colleagues even encountered a situation where an unhacked StarForce blocked the optical drive tray and did not allow normal operation of the disk until a reboot.

Take a look at the technical support forums for games that use the StarForce protection system (by the way, you can see a list of them), and you will see almost countless threads started by users who had problems after installing a game with StarForce protection. Of course, there are also messages from those users who did not find any problems, so StarForce representatives honestly give examples of normally working systems.

Postal 2 is protected by StarForce.

What’s interesting is that in these discussions sometimes people appear who literally fanatically refute all the complaints and arguments of the affected users. But everything becomes clear if we remember that employees of the StarForce PR department were caught red-handed in composing such answers on behalf of mere mortals.

The culmination of the problems with StarForce has not yet arrived, but some publishers have already decided to abandon the use of the dubious system in their games, in response to protests from the gaming community. However, the problem of piracy, which led to the emergence of StarForce, remains. Thus, the need for effective security systems may lead publishers to switch to even more dubious methods, including hidden drivers and rootkits. Well, then viruses and Trojans are just a stone's throw away.

As long as there is piracy in the market, publishers have the right to protect their products. However, as we have already clearly seen with the Sony BMG scandal, this right should not override the consumer’s right to ensure that protection systems do not interfere with normal life and work.

Street Racing Syndicate is protected by StarForce.

The StarForce protection system has never been thoroughly tested in our laboratory, so we cannot reliably confirm whether the problems described are related to the installation of the protection. But if you collect all the facts and complaints related to games from different developers and publishers, then the problems somehow coincide very well if the game uses StarForce protection.

Campaign website boycott StarForce is a good place to learn more about StarForce, as well as the progress of the campaign against this defense.

What games are protected by StarForce?

UFO: Aftershock is protected by StarForce.

Below is a list of games that are protected. Check if you are using such a game:

Hacking StarForce is not the main danger

Anyone who proves that StarForce causes harm is promised $10,000.

Of course, there are problems associated with the use of StarForce - it’s stupid to hide it and it’s stupid to turn a blind eye to it. Of course, it’s unpleasant if a protection system is installed on your computer without your knowledge, or even asking, which, in theory, “allows you to practically reduce to zero the ability to freely emulate pirated images of licensed disks downloaded from the network,” but in practice interferes with the operation of the software software created far from the purposes that the developers incriminate it. And in relation to Russia, the problem is not at all the hacking of StarForce or potential hacking.

The fact is that there is another problem, even more important for our Russian-speaking readers than for visitors to the English-language international version of the site. The problem is that in Russia StarForce is almost the only protection that is provided for officially localized and domestic developments. Moreover, largely thanks to the power and accessibility of StarForce, the domestic gaming industry has the opportunity to develop more or less calmly, and domestic publishers have the opportunity to do business with foreign partners.

So, not everything in the StarForce case is so simple. Especially from the point of view of the Russian game industry and the Russian gamer...

What are we trying to achieve by talking about StarForce? Let's discuss! When talking about issues related to StarForce, we are in no way promoting piracy or unlicensed games. But we support the opinion of ordinary players who believe that publishers should directly indicate on the discs that the protection system carries the potential to harm the user’s computer. For example, on the box with Quake 4 it is written: "NOTICE: This game contains technology intended to prevent copying that may conflict with some disk and virtual drives." may conflict with some disks and virtual drives."

This requirement in the Russian Federation can only be legalized through the law on “Protection of Consumer Rights”. Namely:

Article 7. Consumer right to safety of goods (work, services)

1. The consumer has the right to ensure that the product (work, service), under normal conditions of its use, storage, transportation and disposal, is safe for the life, health of the consumer, the environment, and also does not cause harm to the consumer’s property. Requirements that must ensure the safety of goods (work, services) for the life and health of the consumer, the environment, as well as the prevention of harm to the consumer’s property, are mandatory and are established by law or in the manner established by it.

2. The manufacturer (performer) is obliged to ensure the safety of the product (work) during the established service life or shelf life of the product (work). If, in accordance with paragraph 1 of Article 5 of this Law, the manufacturer (performer) has not established a service life for the product (work), he is obliged to ensure the safety of the product (work) for ten years from the date of transfer of the product (work) to the consumer.

Damage caused to the life, health or property of a consumer due to failure to ensure the safety of goods (work) is subject to compensation in accordance with Article 14 of this Law.

And most importantly:

3. If for the safe use of a product (work, service), its storage, transportation and disposal it is necessary to comply with special rules (hereinafter referred to as the rules), the manufacturer (performer) is obliged to indicate these rules in the accompanying documentation for the product (work, service), on the label , labeling or other means, and the seller (performer) is obliged to bring these rules to the attention of the consumer.

StarForce are drivers for the corresponding protection system for the Windows 7 operating system. They are also suitable for ensuring correct operation with DRM on later OSes (Windows 10 and 8).

First of all, the driver is necessary in order to be able to play old games that have protection against unauthorized copying, as well as use some, also quite old, versions of programs (mainly from developers from Russia and the CIS countries).

About DRM

The StarForce protection system is well known to all “old school” gamers. At one time, this DRM greatly frayed the nerves of game lovers. Before the spread of broadband Internet and the development of digital distribution services like and, it was customary to buy games on physical media (CDs and DVDs). In order to protect licensed copies from illegal distribution, developers most often “turned” to StarForce. The drivers for this DRM were installed on the system along with the game distribution.

Unfortunately, in addition to providing protection, StarForce also brought headaches to responsible buyers of licensed products. For example, it periodically refused to “recognize” media in drives or did not do it the first time. In addition, older versions of SF drivers refused to work with new versions of the Windows operating system. So even if there was a licensed disc, it was not possible to access the game. As a result, the developer had to release a special “patch”. This is exactly what you can download from our website to play old projects on the “seven”.

Important information

Please note that after installing the patch, you will definitely need to restart your computer, as well as the fact that if you do not have a disk drive, even installing one will not help you run the game (you will have to use images or “cracks”).

Key Features

• ensures correct operation of StarForce drivers on Windows 7;
• also works with “later” versions of the OS;
• installed automatically;
• works with any version of the original software;
• is the official solution from the DRM developer company.

I looked for it, but it’s not there =(

I tried it on some game. In short, you turn off the computer, unscrew the cover of the system unit and simply pull out the wire from the CD-ROM that supplies electricity. Then you turn on the computer, insert a virtual disk and play. I was able to do it honestly.

There is a program that cuts off the CD in the system without a reboot, I tried it, no big deal, it spends a long time and then writes a fic =(

Here's what I found:

Theoretically, this is indestructible protection... In practice, you can try to do this:
Let's take the virtual machine alcohol 120% (at the time of writing the version was 1.4.8 build 1222) First, click "general" then "reading" there we set the "standard DPM measurement accuracy" to high. The checkbox at the bottom must also be turned on. Click create images, then select the data type starforce 1\2\3. Set the seeding speed to 8x. A window appears that asks you to select a speed, select 1x (required!) While the image is being created on the computer, do nothing, it’s better not to even move the mouse. When the disc is finally written, you go to the “emulation” section. And check the box next to "RMPS Emulation". Now install the game strictly from the virtual image! Now a little secret begins, after installing the game from the image, turn off the computer, spin it up and pull out the cable and power from the cd-rom. Now turn on the computer and enter the key indicated on the disk. Now to play games with starforce protection you will have to sit with the cd turned off -rom"ohm. It’s inconvenient, but you want to play your favorite toy. But you can record the game from the image to a disc, be sure to write using alcohol. The program places information about the physical data of a real disk on the disc, and this information is easily read from the disc using a regular CD, even if there is no virtual drive. When recording, do not forget to check the box next to "Write RMPS to disk." But this method has a small disadvantage: the size of the game grows a little and may not fit on one blank.

P.S. Starforce blocks access from the hard drive; if possible, you need to transfer the alcohol image to a second hard drive or to another computer on the local network.

MAX Read Speed=1411
Skip Read Error=0
Fast Skip Read Error=0
Read SubChannel Data=1
Read PreGap Area=0
DPM=1
DPM Precision=1
MAX Write Speed=65535
Fix EFM Error=0
Burn RMPS on Disc=0
RecordMethodCount=4
RecordMethod_00=0x01
RecordMethod_01=0x02
RecordMethod_02=0x03
RecordMethod_03=0x04

These settings should be written to the AxType.ini file in the directory where you have Alcohol installed.

Replaces the standard Alcohol settings - all the necessary items are displayed here. Only set the DPM measurement speed to 1x-2x.

You can also try this -
The latest version of the BlindWrite program allows you to read physical signatures.

1. Run BwaBuilder.exe.
2. Select the CD-ROM into which the protected game is inserted.
3. Set the reading speed to a multiple of 4 (4x).
4. Click Start and answer “Yes” to the question that appears.

The reading process can take up to 2 hours (be patient), the lower the reading speed, the better the quality. After the process is finished, save the file with the BWA extension (~26Kb). The name of the saved file must be the same as the image file.
Example: Etherlords.bwt, Etherlords.bwa.

Now use Daemon Tools, specifying that you are emulating RMPS (Recordable Media Physical Signature).

rOH)I(Y6Ac, wow =))) it’s so steamy, but I’ll try now

Breaking StarForce
StarForce is one of the fuckest things in the world
But now you can fuck it

Probably every gamer has encountered a problem called
StarForce, which meant you had to buy discs to play games.
But now there is an opportunity to deceive the StarForce defense. For this we need:

This article
- emulators Alcohol 120% and DAEMON Tools
- disk image checked by StarForc
- StarFuck program

If you don’t have Alcohol 120% and DAEMON Tools, then download them: download Alcohol 120%, download DAEMON Tools
Now let's create the image:
In the Alcohol 120% Emulation settings, check the box next to “RMPS emulation (physical signature of the disc being recorded)” (all 3 checkboxes must be checked).
Before creating the image, go to the alcohol folder and find the AxType.ini file there, add the following lines to it:

MAX Read Speed=1411
Skip Read Error=0
Fast Skip Read Error=0
Read SubChannel Data=1
Read PreGap Area=0
DPM=1
DPM Precision=1
MAX Write Speed=65535
Fix EFM Error=0
Burn RMPS on Disc=0
RecordMethodCount=4
RecordMethod_00=0x01
RecordMethod_01=0x02
RecordMethod_02=0x03
RecordMethod_03=0x04

When creating an image, select StarForce 3.x in the “Data Type”, and set the “Measurement Speed ​​for DPM Function” to 1X.
There is an image. Now let's start "deceiving" the defense:
In the settings of Alcohol 120% virtual disks, set the "Number of virtual disks" to 0.
Now download StarFuck and configure it:

Indicate on which channel your real CDRoms are located (the broom should not hang on the same cable with any of your real CDs!!)
- "CDRom patch method" - Super Aggressive
- specify the Daemon Tools folder
- specify the folder Alcohol 120%
- select the program interface language
- "Waiting for image" - 1000

Using DAEMON Tools, “paste” the image. Launch StarFuck o5, and patch the BList's of all protections in the list. Click "Turn off CD" and START THE GAME!!!
If the disk check starts, then you have successfully deceived StarForce. If, after checking the disk, it gives some kind of error, then the problem is in the image (it was poorly recorded).
StarFuck also has a convenient “Shortcut Generator” function. This function generates a shortcut, when launched, StarFuck automatically deceives StarForce, thereby freeing you from unnecessary work. I will explain only one setting of this function, since all the others are clear. Launch type:

Launch from EXE - when you launch such a shortcut, StarFuck automatically deceives StarForce and launches the game. After finishing the game, StarFuck returns all settings back (includes CD, etc.)
- Launch with waiting - when you launch such a shortcut, StarFuck automatically deceives StarForce and throws out a window with the “Ok” button, when clicked, StarFuck returns all the settings back (includes CD, etc.). Those. You must launch the game yourself, and after the game you must click "Ok"

This is how I (and not only me) play Space Rangers 2 (version 1.0). I haven't tried it on other games yet. So KR2 has a 100% guarantee!

Lately everything
more and more programs being released on
released on discs on the Russian market,
protected by the StarForce system – that’s almost everything
games produced by 1 C, Pyccobit, etc.
A natural question arises - how
copy disks protected by StarForce? After all
discs have their own expiration date, and having purchased
licensed disc in a few months
intensive use may
turn out that the disk has become non-working... For
For this purpose, you can always create an archive
a copy of the disk, unless of course
prohibited by the license agreement.

A little theory

As they say, knowledge
knowledge replaces several principles
many facts. We will also adhere to
this postulate.

Protection determines
original disc by reading time different
disk areas. On the disk, as you know, there is
a spiral path along which
the laser beam is oriented when reading and
records. When producing StarForce disks, this
the track itself is not standard
configuration will thus change
data density in different sectors and
therefore, the time to read them will also be
miscellaneous. On all CD-R and CD-RW discs this
the guide track is applied when
production, and not when recording a disc.
Therefore, all such media
are definitely rejected by StarForce.
Burn a disc protected by StarForce, which
would work like the original because of this
it is forbidden!.

But there are programs
allowing you to create a disk image - regular
file or several, including
information about the physical structure of the disk (about
sector density) and allowing
further emulate read delays.

A little about the software

To create images you can
use:

• BlindWrite Suite (www.blindwrite.com)
  - a program for creating disk images and
  their subsequent recording;
• Alcohol 120% (http://www.alcohol-soft.com) - allows
  create images and burn them to disks,
  and can also create up to 31
  "virtual" CD-ROMs into which you can
  mount disk image files and
  work with them as with conventional drives.
• DAEMON Tools program
  (www.daemon-tools.net)
  is intended only for creating
  virtual disk and emulation, with its
  you cannot create a disk image using
  burn it to CD.
• Of course, other programs that
  quite a lot and you can’t find them
  constitutes labor. At the moment not in
  all have an emulation function implemented
  physical structure of the disk, but I think
  after a while something like this
  will be implemented in most
  common CD/DVD emulator programs