I can afford (financially) to get this problem solved, though I'm not rich. Assuming it can be resolved I will be relieved when it has been, but I just can't believe that this situation is even possible. How is this even legal - in any country ? It's certainly a bizarre occurrence in England : before the Internet came along something like this would not even have been possible - not even THINKABLE. We just don't think like this in England.

So where else should I post my thoughts then ? Wiki leaks is down I've heard.

What I mean is : how is it possible for Joe Average (me) to actually be in this situation at the moment ?

How many companies are shirking their responsibilities here ?

Why is it so "normal" to try to avoid responsibility, corporately or individually ?

Why does everyone cave in in the end and just join in with majority ?

These are old questions, of course, but it looks like they STILL NEED ASKING.

If it was illegal to make any sort of product dependant on a driver which would not work properly with a future version of windows then I know plenty of hardware devs which should be behind bars. For instance Creative Labs. I retired my soundblaster Live when I moved to windows XP, not because I didn't like the soundcard, but because the drivers available would bluescreen my computer every other boot and potentially cause harddrive corruption at the same time. Sure the drivers weren't made for XP, and they didn't bother to update their software properly to something which worked with XP, so it'd be just as illegal.

Starforce works through a kernel level driver. I'm guessing the game was made for 2000 and XP systems meaning the wildly different architecture of Windows Vista/7/8 isn't happy with the driver.
If Starforce is the sole cause here (which it seems though I've yet to see a win7 machine crash from it, instead it'll (starforce driver) usually just pop up a notice saying the driver isn't compatible so it's been disabled)
The fix for all the cases I've seen that has been here
http://www.star-force.com/support/drivers/
sfupdate will update the driver to a compatible version (tested and working on my windows 7 64-bit laptop)
sfremove will remove the driver.

Since the computer cannot boot.
1. Download the files on another machine. Either put on CD or USB drive
2. Power on the broken machine and keep tapping F8 (if the windows logo shows up you'vfe missed the chance)
3. Select safe-mode. Safe-mode does not load anything but default drivers, hence Starforce drivers won't be messing up your system. It takes a lot longer to boot in safe mode so have a bit of patience
4. Insert USB (With win7 USB should work), unzip the file (if you didn't do that before putting on the media)
5. run the program (update or remove, your call)
6. reboot
That should either remove or update your Starforce drivers. I'm not too fond of Starforce either, but at least they do seem to update their software meaning it'll run on a newer OS than usual.

If the above steps don't work. System Restore is likely your friend. Again:
1. Press F8 till you get the boot options menu
2. Select repair computer (if it's not there or not working you'll have to boot from a windows 7 DVD to get it)
3. Once it finishes trying to fix things close the dialog and select advanced options
4. Select system restore from the list
5. Select a restore point before the game install.
6. Wait and hope it works.

Sorry for being so verbose,
As for posting your thoughts on Wikileaks? I think you need something to leak there, and I don't think it's any secret that starforce is a driver. Neither is it any secret that since it was made for an old OS, it might not work perfectly on newer OS'es. Having drivers fail to work, or copy protection near break your system is nothing new even from before the internet. I had a few games before I got internet access do that to me. One of which I actually contacted support on to find a solution for. Konami's response to my woes about their copy protection taking down Windows was "Yeah we don't know. Thank you for your business and enjoy your game if you get it running"

You bought software for your computer which sadly has one of the more bothersome copy protection schemes (I still stand by Star Force not being the worst, only because it doesn't actually install a rootkit like certain others).

Which responsibility? To give you a new DVD with the game and updated drivers when a new version of windows comes out? Or is it who is responsible for copy protection on the game? In that case I'd say 3. The game developers, the publisher and Star Force.

Because otherwise they'd be responsible for all the world's ills on all computers even near their software. Just because something happens about the same time as something else it doesn't mean it's the cause. And as you said before Joe Average has no way to determine what cause what. I work IT support. I've seen plenty of people who come in with a computer which was broken by something they installed, which turns out to be a completely different and non-problematic issue, it was the thing toppling the load. If you want someone to be responsible for all that happens on your electronic device, buy an iPhone or a windows 8 RT tablet, or a playstation or XBox or wii. Those are so locked down and gated that you know who is responsible for making sure it works. On any open platform where the user has choice, the user sadly also has some responsibility on what he decides or allows to install from whom.

This isn't a reply to your entire post (which would take some studying) but just to the story you told at the end re Konami. Did you accept their answer to you or were you offended by it ? I would have been offended by it. In England, even when a company goes bust it pulls all the stops out to please its customers : this is one of the things which will always make England a very nice place to be, whatever outsiders might think about England and the history of the British Empire. Similarly, truly English / British companies would never conspire to con someone in the way I've just been conned : by conspiring to not take responsibility when a customer has been let down.

To find out if someone is legally responsible if we exclude user error would take a long time and more importantly cost a lot of money so avoiding responsibility = avoiding spending money. Sadly, it's not the drive to profit that sometimes runs companies (or basically the world) but the desire to have as little responsibility (cost) as possible. Sort of like nature, low energy & maximum entropy.

Do they? Seems like you just don't like the answers...

You've received good advice in this thread, yet are clearly more focused on finding blame rather than taking action to improve your situation.

Worst case scenario (which seems very unlikely) your system is bricked and you'll have to do a fresh install. With proper backups and restore points even this should not be such a big deal.

You'll feel better when you act, so I hope you try it.

Yes you are basically right. I am very thankful to those who have offered me advice but I am scared to act on any of it because I am crap with computers. So thanks everyone and .... I still feel crap XXX

I don't intend to be offensive, but why come ask for advice if you're not going to use it on the first place? You have 2 choices: bring your PC to a store to get it fixed, or try to fix it yourself. If you're so decided to not bothering to do anything yourslef, then don't waste people's time asking for advice online and go get it fixed already. You can always start a thread about DRM's evilness while waiting for the computer to get fixed.

PS: Forgot about option 3: get a friend/family/aquaintance who knows something about computers to fix it for you. Always a classic.

Two options: you are scared to act and resign yourself to a useless machine, or you are scared to act but decide that now just might be the right time to learn something new about it.

Try the safe mode. It exists for a reason. Many a Windows have gone haywire over the years, but Safe mode has not been the culprit ;)

I am now with someone who I was due to meet. As soon as he arrived I told him about this. He wanted to look at it. When I turned the machine on the problem had gone. I can't believe. I am very happy but not yet rejoicing because I can't understand how it could have happened and then un-happened. And I seriously DO thank everyone who tried to help me. I am also nearly sober now :) Thank you all so much. X

I find it most hilarious... http://www.gog.com/forum/general/anyone_dealt_with_simbin_ddl
Read the second sentence in the 6th post of the thread.

It's a shame, I can no longer find any trace of that promo, I wrote about back then. You could've replaced your copy easily.

Now that your system boots, you need to decide what to do with SF sitting in it.

Oh dear. I'm sorry, that sounds awful. My only experience with StarForce cost me a DVD drive which was bad enough, but this is just terrible.

I'm glad the problem's gone away (auto-updating driver maybe?). Good luck getting StarForce all the way off your computer!

I was too. I then found a no-cd crack which solved the issue since it didn't need the copy protection.

Wrote their support back to say they ought to thank the guys who toil for free to fix problems they include in their game and refuse to acknowledge might be a legit problem.

Also since then I've steered clear of any Konami title for the PC and been wary of buying any console title by them. That experience (I believe it was called apocalyptica) and Metal Gear Solid 2 on the PC made me decide they really couldn't care less about the PC market. Still found it entertaining how they released MGS2 with graphics options available that modern systems coldn't pull when released. As I got a new graphics card it could pull it better but now with severe graphics glitches even on the setting which worked fine before.
Last time I tried it with a newer card I could just about manage to play it on the lowest settings without being bombarded by graphics glitches.

All's well that ends well? Now read up on how to completely clear the thing out of your system and be done with it. You can keep the game files, mind you, just find a crack to run them with. Or send to the dev, asking for a Starforce-less DL.