sonic riders pc copy protection safedisc

I was ultimately able to extract the files using unshield, which I built from source in WSL / Ubuntu as Windows binaries were not available. Not being in a mood to delve to the source code to figure out why, I spent an hour or two looking for alternative tools. However it did not work completely for the game: I was able to extract the first archive, but I got some undescriptive error messages when trying to extract the second. I’ve done this a couple of times before using Universal Extractor 2, an excellent tool for extracting literally hundreds of different binary archive formats. The game data is stored in two archives on the disc: data1.cab and data2.cab. The installer was created using InstallShield 6.1. This was both simpler and more complicated than I expected. To test the theory, I needed to extract all of the necessary game files from the CD. Remember a couple of paragraphs ago when I said that the SafeDisc signature is in setup.exe? This gave me an idea: what if SafeDisc is only used for the installer, and not the game itself? So by bypassing the installer, we could run the game without having to care about the DRM. However, it turns out there is a relatively easy way to bypass the DRM in the case of this game. These include re-enabling the possibly vulnerable DRM driver (no thanks), installing a no-CD patch (I’m not aware of one for this game) or getting a digital copy of the game (which as previously stated does not exist). There are ways to bypass the DRM, even on Windows 10. While this was the right move from the security POV, the result is that about a decade’s worth of games are no longer playable on Windows 10, at least when installing from an original CD or DVD. Because of this Windows 10 dropped support for the DRM scheme in 2015, alongside the more widely known and despised SecuROM software. SafeDisc was implemented using a system driver, which ironically caused it to become a major source of security vulnerabilities.

When I opened setup.exe in a hex editor I was easily able to find the magic string that identifies the exe as being SafeDisc v2 protected. SafeDisc v2 is easy to recognise: the root folder of the disc includes the files 00000001.TMP, 00000001.TMP and SECDRV.SYS. Last time I encountered was while backing up my CD copy of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of The King for PC. The CD of Bygg hus med Mulle Meck incorporates a disc copy protection scheme known as SafeDisc V2, which was very common in games of the era. I mounted a backup disc image of the game, and tried to run the installer on my Windows 10 computer. While it is technology-wise quite similar to the first two games, from the preservation point of view it includes an unfortunate addition: DRM. The fourth game - about building houses, of course - was released in 2002 (2003 in Finland) and is somewhat more difficult to run on modern systems. However, it is by far the worst of the series (don’t me) and can be ran with the help of a virtual machine if nothing else. The third game (about planes) is more difficult to run because it uses an ancient version of Direct3D, and I remember it being fiddly to run even when it was new. The first two games (about building cars and boats respectively) are quite easy to run even on Windows 10 with the help of a few compatibility settings.

Luckily all of the games are preserved on. None of the games are on sale anymore, and since a lot of people (at least here in Finland) played them in schools or public libraries there are not too many physical copies around. The simple gameplay was supported by lovely hand-drawn art and quirky fully voice acted dialogue.

For me the games were primitive yet effective gateway drugs to more complex engineering-y games year later like Garry’s Mod and Kerbal Space Program. Like many other people of my vintage I played and greatly enjoyed them at the time. Four of the five games were localised & released in Finnish, and they were wildly popular between the late 90s and early-to-mid 2000s. The franchise consists of five games about designing and building things, plus naturally a personal organiser / calendar application. There was a Swedish series of children’s somewhat educational video games called Mulle Meck, known in other languages with similarly alliterative names like Masa Mainio, Gary Gadget and Willy Werkel.

Bypassing early 2000s copy protection for software preservation - paavohtl's blog paavohtl's blog posts about Bypassing early 2000s copy protection for software preservation ĪKA: Sidestepping copy protection with Masa Mainio

Sonic riders pc copy protection safedisc