the only thing that will happen in response to that, is that fear will get a new achievement in galaxy:

"opened a support ticket about securom in fear"

deleted

I don't have the game, but if you follow J_Darnley's link and check out that post and attached screenshot, the issue seems to be more than inert files and registry entries.

As for GOG's promise, see my comment to GR00T.



Actually, 3yrs ago Firek said they already had "a workaround in the works" (emphasis mine)

lol
But seriously - I think it's worth a try. It might not help much if only one person will open a support ticket but if as many people as possible are sending one in GOG might notice that this still is an issue that needs to be fixed. I will follow HypersomniacLive's link to better understand the issue and open one myself. Hopefully it will work since I don't even own the game on GOG.

That looks pretty bad but it would help to know when exactly this message is shown. J_Darnley is saying something about closing process explorer which I don't understand completely. Is it really the case that the DRM is preventing to start the game or the expansion? If that is the case then would not everybody have the problem? Don't misunderstand me - I do believe that this is an issue but to build a case it would really help to understand the underlying issue completely. If there is in fact anything in the game that is preventing the buyer to play it they will HAVE to act.

That is why I contacted Firek directly in November. The fact that I did not even get a reply was disappointing to say the least. I've got the impression that you can talk to GOG if you stay friendly but Firek did not even bother to respond and I really don't like to be ignored.

I'm in for this. I don't have the game but maybe someday I can buy it and I don't want secuROM or other DRM on my PC.

Can you write a basic message to copy? So even those who don't know English perfectly can easily send it.

You are actually asking a German to write a basic message in English...;)
But yes, I can do such a thing as soon as I can really summarize the problem. Open a support ticket and just poinbt to this thread probably won't cut it. We need as much information as we can gather about this before writing support to make sure that we know what we are talking about.

Ahah right XD

Yes, better include exactly the issue and what trigger the secuROM installation, so they can go directly at the source of the problem and maybe resolve it quickly.

Are you at all familiar with Process Explorer? Here's a good read on what it does and how it works.

I assume that J_Darnley either has it running on their system on principle, or fired it up to check the F.E.A.R. SecuROM business. His linked post #352 states that the message popped up as soon as they attempted to start the Extraction Point expansion - note that the message says [emphasis added] "a required security module cannot be activated".

The details of that specific SecurROM error message can be found here.

Looking a bit around the Internet, Sims 2 Double deluxe and GTA4 on Steam have similar reported issues.

So, the question is - if the DRM is indeed inert in the GOG version of F.E.A.R. Platinum, why, and how, can it detect that a File/Process/Registry Monitoring program is running in the background, and prevents one from launching the game unless they close said program(s)?

SPORE™ Collection and Crysis Warhead® also suffered from this issue (errors 5024/5025), but apparently nuking the DRM from those was successful.

There's also this thread in the game forum, but Error 8016 had to do with certain Intel CPUs, and apparently has been addressed in the meantime by the manufacturer(s).


Apparently it's become really hard to talk to Firek - I had a support ticket about one of my PM exchanges becoming inaccessible after the latest chat change with a very unique error message, support was of no help, so I asked to talk to Firek; that was a week ago, I see that my latest follow-up is assigned to him, but haven't heard from him.

Understood. Now all makes sense. This also explains while other people don't have any problems launching the expansion because they don't have process explorer (or other programs interfering with secuROM) running in the background. Like you said - if the secuROM would be completely inactive it could not detect or warn about anything at all.

That's pretty sad to hear.

I assume that you too consider it a problem then, even if most people don't have such programs running in the background?


It is indeed; still no word.

Of course, because it does not matter at all. GOG said, we have NO ACTIVE DRM and SecuROM complaining about something I am doing on my PC is showing me that there in fact IS active DRM in it despite GOGs saying. It's basically proof they are wrong. No DRM means No DRM and not "No DRM until you don't do something we did not expect". Inactive DRM does not care at all if I am running process explorer or any other tool - and who says that SecuROM won't complain if I should decide to run any other third party tool in the background?

I have, as MarkoH01 said, opened a ticket, since I can reproduce the problem with the open Process Monitor application.
Even so I don't think much will come of this, but at least I have done my part and will keep you up to date.

Besides this I'm very disappointed in GOGs "no drm stance". To me it is more like "a little drm is ok".

So FEAR does have DRM that wasn't dealt with?

Hmmmm... might have to find a cracked version of the game and only take the executable files (a few megs) while using gog's installer for the rest of it...

Though why they couldn't completely remove it i couldn't say, because you know there's builds that you just enable an option to include/exclude DRM, or a few lines of code.

If you only use the single player links in the menu then you'll be fine. It's been said that it's the FEARMP.EXE that installs the SecuROM files and registry entries, so just don't use that and don't click the multiplayer options (multiplayer doesn't even work anyway as they replaced it with a standalone multiplayer game). Better still, delete FEARMP.EXE after installing the game.