I accidentally installed StarForce the nasty DRM.

[aimeeandbeatles]

I got a cheap game the other day, not realizing it had StarForce on it. I didn't see anything about it in the EULA (which, I admit, I just skimmed) or when installing and I didn't see anything about it until I tried to launch it and it wouldn't let me because I had a virtual CD drive (which I use for perfectly legal purposes).

I decided to uninstall the game as I turned off the virtual drive to try it and it wasn't very good anyways (only a few dollars though) but this doesn't remove the StarForce driver thing and I'm not sure the removal tool I found online will work completely.

I googled it and got this which was a 404: http://www.glop.org/starforce/remove.php

So anyways my question is: Does the removal tool actually work to remove all traces? Or, I was planning to reinstall the system soon anyways, so should I just do that?

 

[deanej]

No idea. If you were going to re-install your system you might as well just do that. I'm sure someone's come up with a manual method somewhere though.

For the future you might want to consider installing games into a sandbox. At the very least you could install this game in one to see what StarForce installs and check if it really removed itself, but if StarForce detects itself on the system it might not install itself in the sandbox.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Yeah, that may be the best thing.

 

[Maniacal]

I've had two games install Starforce and never had a problem in 3+ years.

Which is odd. I also am going to reinstall Windows soon anyway (like for the last year).

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I've had two games install Starforce and never had a problem in 3+ years.

Which is odd. I also am going to reinstall Windows soon anyway (like for the last year).

Well its not so much problems as the fact that its cluttering up my computer when I don't even play the game.

 

[Maniacal]

You won't notice it until it fries (figuratively speaking) your DVD drive.