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Starforce! - 4/8/2006 6:11:20 PM   
Goblin


Posts: 5547
Joined: 3/29/2002
From: Erie,Pa. USA
Status: offline 		I just installed Gangland after checking the outside of the box carefully. No mention of Starforce anywhere. Guess what? Yep, it included Starforce. I uninstalled the game, but how do I make sure it took Starforce out? I saw on the recent lawsuit that it does not always remove Starforce when you uninstall the game it came with. I do not want this POS on my computer! Help!!!!!!1111




Goblin

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RE: Starforce! - 4/8/2006 6:26:16 PM   
Riun T

 

Posts: 1848
Joined: 7/31/2004
Status: offline 		what is this starforce ,? some extra I should be concerned with that might have come on the sudden strike disk?? help me out goblin?? RT

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RE: Starforce! - 4/8/2006 6:32:35 PM   
petdoc

 

Posts: 111
Joined: 5/24/2002
From: Calgary, Canada
Status: offline 		There is a starforce removal tool that you need to run to get the crap off your computer. You can find it easily if you google for it, but I think it can also be found on the starforce website.

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Post #: 3
RE: Starforce! - 4/8/2006 6:38:13 PM   
Goblin


Posts: 5547
Joined: 3/29/2002
From: Erie,Pa. USA
Status: offline
quote:

what is this starforce ,? some extra I should be concerned with that might have come on the sudden strike disk?? help me out goblin?? RT




http://www.strategyzoneonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39795

I don't know if all of it is true, but I am not taking any chances. I want it off. I went to Starforce's site, and they have a contest for anyone to prove its true. You have to take your PC to their office (in MOSCOW). So, time off work, pay for the trip, and trust THEM to admit any of it is true. If they admit any of it caused problems on your PC, they pay for the trip, 2 days lodging, and give you $10,000US. If THEY admit its true. They state that the lack of anyone taking them up on it is proof that Starforce does nothing to a PC at all. I think it is proof that no one trusts them to admit anything, and cannot afford to just jaunt over to Moscow and risk the cost of doing so just to get sent home with a 'Honest, it wasn't our product...'

There are alot of claims from spyware, to damaging CD/DVD drives, to interfering with other programs. Just don't want to risk it. At the very least, the part about not disclosing that Starforce is there in the first place is true.


Goblin

< Message edited by Goblin -- 4/8/2006 6:42:52 PM >

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RE: Starforce! - 4/8/2006 6:41:00 PM   
Goblin


Posts: 5547
Joined: 3/29/2002
From: Erie,Pa. USA
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: petdoc

There is a starforce removal tool that you need to run to get the crap off your computer. You can find it easily if you google for it, but I think it can also be found on the starforce website.


I did find it, but others state it only reomves a part of it, and leaves other parts. Dunno if true or not, but I almost believe it. I think the official site hosting the tool removal basically tells as much.


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RE: Starforce! - 4/8/2006 7:02:10 PM   
Riun T

 

Posts: 1848
Joined: 7/31/2004
Status: offline 		I just did a reg cleaner and all my spyware hunters and didn't see any reference to starforce on any scans and looked in the properties of the disk and hope they don't have any affiliations with this cause the game seems to be working and its not screwing up anything else so far,, knock on wood. RT

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Post #: 6
RE: Starforce! - 4/8/2006 10:31:44 PM   
Jevhaddah


Posts: 626
Joined: 11/24/2005
From: Scotland
Status: offline 		To make sure yoo have deleted the Starforce device drivers, go to Control Panel, System, Device manager Select the View Menu and tick SHOW hidden Devices. Look in NoN-Plug and Play, if starforce is listed there after using the removal tool, just delete the Devices.

There are many rumours going around concerning Starforce, my main objection to it is that I was not asked for permission to install it and was totally unaware of its presence until AFTER I installed the game.

Cheers

Jevvy

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Post #: 7
RE: Starforce! - 4/9/2006 5:10:23 AM   
Ike99


Posts: 1747
Joined: 1/1/2006
From: A Sand Road
Status: offline 		Starforce can damage your hard drive. I won't buy a game using Starforce.

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Post #: 8
RE: Starforce! - 4/9/2006 6:50:44 AM   
Zap


Posts: 3639
Joined: 12/6/2004
From: LAS VEGAS TAKE A CHANCE
Status: offline 		Jevhaddah,
Followed your instructions, did not see anything that read starforce. What would be the identifying call letters, if it would be in a short form?

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RE: Starforce! - 4/9/2006 4:18:46 PM   
Jevhaddah


Posts: 626
Joined: 11/24/2005
From: Scotland
Status: offline 		After selecting View Hidden Devices, look in the Non-plug and Play section of the Device list and look for:@

Starforce Protection Environment Driver (version 1.x)
Starforce Protection Helper Driver (version 2.x)
Starforce Protection Synchronization Driver (version 2.x)

Its in alphabetical order so if this does not show up then yer fine

Cheers
Jevvy

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Post #: 10
RE: Starforce! - 4/9/2006 6:31:56 PM   
Riun T

 

Posts: 1848
Joined: 7/31/2004
Status: offline 		Thanks for the info JEV, I followed your instructions and found nothing, like ZAP, and everything is still running thumbs up so I'll watch, play and see,... Becoming as addicted to this as SPWAW so cross all your fingers for me,cause this fools gonna beat the game! RT

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Post #: 11
RE: Starforce! - 4/9/2006 6:46:00 PM   
Riun T

 

Posts: 1848
Joined: 7/31/2004
Status: offline 		Hey ZAP if u still have the sudden strike II on your machine I'd be interested in doing a multi player of it with you? PM me so we don't have to talk about another game that isn't of the forum, Hope you'd like to give it a whirl.RT

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Post #: 12
RE: Starforce! - 4/9/2006 11:33:05 PM   
ravinhood


Posts: 3891
Joined: 10/23/2003
Status: offline 		There are two different versions of Starforce out now the older version like the one that came on Gangland and then there is a newer version that I found out about that came on X3:Reunion. The newer version does NOT completely uninstall all the drivers when you use the OLD tool to remove Starforce. I never found a new Starforce remover program, so, I just formatted my whole hard-drive to get rid of it and will never buy any game again with Starforce on it as long as I am aware of it of course, but, now I'm really particular about who makes the game CDV/UBI are totally out and finding out what kind of copy protection it uses. Crap like this almost makes me want to just turn "pirate" and say FU to any game companies that use intrusive software copy protection schemes. I have two wasted CDroms because of Starforce, now my system won't even recognize they are part of the system at all. When I put CD's in them it just keeps telling me "no cd detected blah blah". Certainly glad someone finally is taking those fools to court I hope they get sued for all the money they have or could ever make and $5,000,000 is quite a bit of money if/when they lose. ;)

< Message edited by ravinhood -- 4/9/2006 11:34:18 PM >

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Post #: 13
RE: Starforce! - 4/10/2006 12:10:36 AM   
watchtower


Posts: 867
Joined: 8/2/2004
From: Republic of Kilburn. London UK
Status: offline 		Gosh all this paranoia!! - What is this thing about spyware?? What terrible things are hiding on you HD?

I have never had a problem with a starforce game. Unlike coffee which should be banned - fullstop.

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Post #: 14
RE: Starforce! - 4/10/2006 12:43:38 AM   
rhondabrwn


Posts: 2570
Joined: 9/29/2004
From: Snowflake, Arizona
Status: offline 		Well. thanks for the detection tips... I just checked and I have those files on my system.

However, I've had no problems with my drives so I'm not panicking. I did reinstall some CDV and Ubisoft titles after my last rebuild so I guess that's where I picked it up.

Well, if my system starts acting weird, I'll know where to look and what to uninstall.

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Post #: 15
RE: Starforce! - 4/10/2006 1:44:07 AM   
Ike99


Posts: 1747
Joined: 1/1/2006
From: A Sand Road
Status: offline
quote:

Gosh all this paranoia!! - What is this thing about spyware?? What terrible things are hiding on you HD?


It's not the spyware that bothers me personally. It's the possible HD and CD-Rom damage.

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Post #: 16
RE: Starforce! - 4/10/2006 2:00:02 AM   
Terminus


Posts: 41459
Joined: 4/23/2005
From: Denmark
Status: offline 		It's amazing that these people have actually gotten money for writing what amounts to a hardware-damaging computer virus!

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Post #: 17
RE: Starforce! - 4/10/2006 3:07:50 AM   
Doggie


Posts: 3244
Joined: 9/19/2001
From: Under the porch
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Jevhaddah

To make sure yoo have deleted the Starforce device drivers, go to Control Panel, System, Device manager Select the View Menu and tick SHOW hidden Devices. Look in NoN-Plug and Play, if starforce is listed there after using the removal tool, just delete the Devices.




Holy Crap! I found this stuff on my computer, and I never heard of Gangland!

Clicking on the offending files, I found an option to "uninstall" and then a prompt to re-boot. The only game I can think of where I could have got this is Silent Hunter III which I uninstalled as I don't have the 1024 RAM required to run it.

Is it really gone, or just has it just hid itself somewhere else?


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Post #: 18
RE: Starforce! - 4/10/2006 3:09:49 AM   
Terl


Posts: 609
Joined: 6/1/2005
From: Charleston, WV
Status: offline 		Curious.... I have starforce on my pc also. I never knew about it until I started seeing posts like these. I have never had any problems at all as have been described. The only part that bugs me is that it places it on my drive....but...I've not read the complete disclosures I accept all the time either...

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Post #: 19
RE: Starforce! - 4/10/2006 3:18:07 AM   
RBWhite


Posts: 1484
Joined: 8/28/2004
From: Somerdale, New Jersey, USA
Status: offline 		I hate Starforce, makes my machine act a little fickel. I have one game left on my machine with SF and thats about to be trashed. It uses SF ProActive.

The two version are Starforce Professional, that I believe is for CD copy protection, I think thats my understanding & Starforce ProActive which is for E-Commerce activation.

But I understand they both use the same technology, drivers, same same same............everything

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Post #: 20
RE: Starforce! - 4/10/2006 5:43:51 AM   
Hentzau


Posts: 161
Joined: 8/31/2004
Status: offline 		Many demos out there also contain starforce so you don't just acquire it from a bought game. The "Soldiers Heroes of WW2" demo contained starforce for example. Starforce has effected my ability to burn "good" CDRs in the past. I won't buy more games with starforce on them, if Ubi puts starforce on the new WWI flight sim I'll be uber PO'd.

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Post #: 21
RE: Starforce! - 4/10/2006 10:28:40 AM   
JudgeDredd


Posts: 8573
Joined: 11/14/2003
From: Scotland
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Hentzau
...if Ubi puts starforce on the new WWI flight sim I'll be uber PO'd.


No reason to think they won't...They've released it on all their major titles.

I have to stand up and say I have a couple "minor" issues with Starforce. It was on my system by way of Silent Hunter III and X3 - Reunion. I suddenly realised I had a cd burning software running and that was the reason I could not run X3 - and another time I discovered that I couldn't now run GTR from my dvd-rw drive.

The details are vague - but these problems occurred as far as I can remember. However, I've never seen any apparent damage to my system...so as long as the game is worth it, I may not let it bother me if it uses it or not....but I do find it strange that companies are using software protection that:
1) Costs them potential sales
2) Is so vehemently opposed to by the gaming community
3) Is intrusive, apparently damaging and definitely fickle
4) And this is the cruncher - it doesn't work as copy protection!!

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Post #: 22
RE: Starforce! - 4/10/2006 4:30:49 PM   
Jevhaddah


Posts: 626
Joined: 11/24/2005
From: Scotland
Status: offline
quote:

The only game I can think of where I could have got this is Silent Hunter III which I uninstalled


Silent Hunter 3 has the earlier version of Starforce which as yoo found out is not removed after an un-install

So far I have had no problems with SF on my main gaming PC, my main gripe is that there is/was no warning of its presence on the game box.

There are are also a lot of stories going around that blame SF for every mishap, while some of them may be true bear in mind a lot of it is just coincidence.

Personally I do not like SF, but I have some games like X3 that need it to run, I will however think twice before I buy a game that is 'protected' by it.

I use CD emulation software on my laptop for my grahics libraries etc, SF does not like this and refuses to let games run, this to me is a piece of nonsense. I do not know how they can get away with producing and distributing a piece of software that by design stops legitimately bought games run, becuase you have another legitimately bought piece of software running on yer PC.

The above holds true for De-bugging software too and as I am a retired Software Engineer and still code for fun, I can do without the hassle.

Sooooo, what to do....

Cheers

Jev



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RE: Starforce! - 4/10/2006 6:53:30 PM   
Riun T

 

Posts: 1848
Joined: 7/31/2004
Status: offline 		What u've mentioned about the lack of notification of these types of EXTRAS that one recieves with what they think from the box, is an individual item urks me the most. AS u said why do they get to interupt any other function on one's machine that u as the owner and opperator of have deemed lagitimate and payed for? IF STARFORCE WORKS SO WELL OR IS SO REQUIRED BY THE PROGRAM<?? SHOULDN"T IT AT LEAST BE MENTIONED ON THE fuggen BOX?? I've gone to the length of unfolding it flat to read, AND THERES NOTHING !! RT

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Post #: 24
RE: Starforce! - 4/10/2006 8:14:53 PM   
Jevhaddah


Posts: 626
Joined: 11/24/2005
From: Scotland
Status: offline 		Another point that I should mention is that it is the Publisher IIRC that decides what protection goes onto a CD and not the developer, so complaints etc should be aimed at them.

In the end though most people are not going to be aware that SF is there and the big publishers are not going to give hoot about what we think. The SF people themselves are pretty arogant and seem to think that everyone who complains is a Pirate, so much for innocent untill proven guilty.

The fact remains though that something is being installed on my PC that I know nothing about, prior to purchse, it can interupt or totally prohibit me from carrying out other tasks on my own PC and as I have said before, I will NOT be buying any more games with SF protection, but compared to ordinary peeps, I am just lost in the crowd.


Cheers
Jev


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Post #: 25
RE: Starforce! - 4/11/2006 1:08:17 AM   
vertical

 

Posts: 60
Joined: 12/25/2005
Status: offline 		I plan on buying SH3 soon and am curious, if I ran the SF removal utility every time after I exited the game would SF only be on my system during the time I run the game? I will not buy SH3 if SF has to be active on my system in between.



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Post #: 26
RE: Starforce! - 4/11/2006 1:11:50 AM   
Jevhaddah


Posts: 626
Joined: 11/24/2005
From: Scotland
Status: offline 		I may be wrong, but if yoo use the removal tool and then check in the Device manager and find no mention of Starforce then it may be gone, but it will re-install itself the next time yoo play SH3 and will ask yoo to reboot yer PC.

Cheers
Jev

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Post #: 27
RE: Starforce! - 4/11/2006 4:16:54 AM   
RBWhite


Posts: 1484
Joined: 8/28/2004
From: Somerdale, New Jersey, USA
Status: offline 		My understanding of Starforce ProActive is that it is dormant when the game is dormant.

But, SF ProActive knows instantly when you boot up an SF game if you have changed you systems configuration and deactivates the game. So is it dormant?

Thus requiring a reactivation from the publisher or developer/publisher if they are the same entity.

Starforce Professional is never dormant, so I'm lead to believe.

You have to find out which version Ubi is using.

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Post #: 28
RE: Starforce! - 4/11/2006 1:29:37 PM   
ravinhood


Posts: 3891
Joined: 10/23/2003
Status: offline 		You can remove Starforce everytime after playing the game for Gangland and it will be gone, for X3:Reunion though it leaves shadow drivers still even if you use the old tool to remove Starforce. It apprantently gives most trouble to those who use copy programs like Nero or any non-regular non-full copy type backup program. I lost two cdroms on two seperate systems due to Starforce I'm pretty sure. When everything is working fine and great until you install a game with it on it, then all of a sudden the cdroms stop reading or even being recognized in your system, then you remove Starforce and everything starts working fine again, it can only mean one thing Starforce was causing the issues. Unfortunately the X3:Reunion Starforce managed to destroy my Cdroms completely, now neither one is recognized by either of my computers. You don't call it coincedence when on two seperate occassions with two seperate systems after installing Starforce these things happen.

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Post #: 29
RE: Starforce! - 4/11/2006 3:29:45 PM   
Jevhaddah


Posts: 626
Joined: 11/24/2005
From: Scotland
Status: offline 		Like all things to do with IT and computing change happens rapidly and in quick succession.

As far a Starforce is concerened, probably the best thing to do is avoid it altogether.
As I used to tell my students 'If in doubt, leave it out' before doing something yoo may regret.

It is a very contentous issue and both the arrogance of the Starforce people AND the people that blame it for everything that goes wrong are not really helping to solve the issues.

The truth is probably somewhere in between.

I will not be buying any games that have SF as protection and I have removed my X3 from my gaming PC until Egosoft or the Publisher release a NO CD patch as they did with X2.

It's the publishers that have to be moaned at though, but it will probably be futile.

I spend most of my free time play one of the many excellent games I have purchased from Matrix Games anyway as I have all but given up on the 'Main Stream' commercial, bug ridden rubbish that is churned out these days.

Cheers

Jev



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