Microsoft Kills Support For Ageing DRMs with Windows 10

Windows 10 has been officially released for a while now and it still draws headlines for various reasons. Sometimes they aren’t the best, but mostly the release has been positive and well received. For the biggest part, Windows 10 will run anything that Windows 7 and 8 did, but there are a few very limited exceptions and two of those are aging DRM protections.

Securom and SafeDisk protected games won’t run in Windows 10 and they will never do so. If you wish to play older games that use this form of optical disk DRM, then you’ll need a no-CD crack or similar. Many older games have also been re-released on GOG and Steam where you can get them in working condition.

The reason behind the block is a basic restructuring of how everything works. It is a new operating system and it needs to adapt in order to close loopholes that can be abused. And that is the main reason for those two DRMs not to work anymore, they can be abused by malware as an attack point on your system.

“And then there are old games on CD-Rom that have DRM. This DRM stuff is also deeply embedded in your system, and that’s where Windows 10 says ‘sorry, we cannot allow that, because that would be a possible loophole for computer viruses,’ said Microsoft’s Boris Schneider-Johne in a video interview.

That’s why there are a couple of games from 2003-2008 with Securom, etc. that simply don’t run without a no-CD patch or some such. We can just not support that if it’s a possible danger for our users. There are a couple of patches from developers already, and there is stuff like GOG where you’ll find versions of those games that work.”

Where the above quote is directed at Securom, it isn’t any different for SafeDisk. The company behind it says that they won’t update it to work with the newer Windows version and says that it’s Microsoft’s job to fix it. Long story short, SafeDisk won’t work with Windows 10 either.

Windows 10 is a great operating system and there isn’t any doubt about how popular it will get any more. I can also add the bonus information, as a lot of people still are misinformed on the issue, that Windows 10 won’t disable your cracked games or disable the system for unauthorized hardware. That paragraph in the ToS has nothing to do with Windows 10 but is instead directed at the Xbox and Microsoft Services. This fact is still being misrepresented by a lot of sites and you can read the real story here.