USDemo and Securom issue

[Risa 0]

I have downloaded US Demo (released on April 17), installed and when running it, I got message box saying something along "Security module cannot be activated". Link in message box pointed to Securom website which says I should not run FileMon, RegMon with ARMA demo.

Though I do have use FileMon and RegMon on my machine (in fact I run ProcMon during the installation), I did not run ProcMon with ARMA. I do not know what Securom detects and what is the problem, but clearly it detects it wrong and since there is no way to "uninstall" ProcMon I uninstalled ARMA demo.

I wonder however on BIS policy, since ProcMon (and all other utils from Sysinternals) are now officially offered by Microsoft, so ARMA now says "I am not going to run with Microsoft own tools?!" Also, this is a demo, why is there Securom?

[Bet 0]

Are you perchance running Process Explorer as well? That's been the cause of this error in my case as well as others. If you're not, then you just have to reboot your machine without running the Sysinternals tools you're using. The rebooting part is a definite bummer, in that every time I want to play ArmA I need to reboot. It's the annoyance of a StarForce activation reboot taken to a whole other level. I find myself wishing I had gone with the Sprocket version

See this thread for more details on the problem

For the last part of your question, the reason the demo is protected is that piracy groups can use unprotected demo files to speed their efforts at cracking or circumventing copy protection. It kind of goes hand in hand with using copy protection in the first place.

At this point I'm hoping that the Atari North America release has a less invasive version of SecuROM or some other copy protection altogether. I would buy another copy of ArmA in a heartbeat in that case, and give my import copy to a friend that doesn't rely on official Microsoft tools to keep their OS in line

Edit: Ah dang it, I just realized that you're using the US demo. That means it uses the same version of SecuROM

[Risa 0]

Yep, thanks for pointing out the other thread. I realized that this must be true, since process explorer (as well as process monitor and other tools from Sysinternals) loads kernel drivers "ad-hoc" and then leave them in system. So after I run process monitor, the driver remained in memory and SecureRom detected that.

I must however say that I am totally in line with the last poster of that thread, i.e. I cannot accept that one company is dictating what programs (or processes) I can (or should) run on my computer. Since I definitely need Process Monitor more than SecureRom on my machine I guess I will pass on ARMA for this.

In the end, it seems it made sense, they put it in the demo