Good news for people who like to use disc images to preserve their SecuROM protected games. Now you no longer need to disable your real drives with the latest version of Alcohol 120%.

After copying a friend's copy of The Sims 2 Deluxe I ran into a bit of a problem after installing it from the new image. The game was able to detect Alcohol 120% on my computer and gave me the usual message about having a conflict with my emulation software. The Sims 2 Deluxe is a DVD that contains the original game (possibly along with it's patch but it doesn't say on the cover) that also contains the Nightlife expansion. It also contains a new version of SecuROM 7 that was updated from Tomb Raider: Legend and F.E.A.R.: Director's Cut to version 7.00.00.0071 (obtained using a directory scan with A-Ray Scanner). This of course was a big disappointment to me as I had yet to play any Sims game except for Sim City 3000.

After only a few days however, a new verison of Alcohol 120% is here that not only can hide itself from this new version of SecuROM 7 but is also able to blend in along with my real DVD drives preventing the need for me to hide them. After installing and loading the game with this new version of Alcohol 120% (1.9.6 Build 5403 for anyone that is curious) I waited to see the screen telling me to insert the disc into one of my other drives since I had not yet disabled them. Upon seeing the SecuROM mouse cursor I hung my head thinking it had failed as was about to show the emulation screen again but after a short pause after my cursor returned to normal the screen went black and the intro video started playing.

I have been unable to confirm if Daemon Tool has also fixed this problem as I can't seem to get the latest version to install on my other computer that is still running an older version of it. I have also not yet retested Tomb Raider: Legend or F.E.A.R. as of this post as I just got done playing with The Sims 2 and wanted to tell someone about this asap but my guess is I will get the same results.

Results of A-Ray Scan on the Sims 2 Deluxe install directory (again for anyone that is curious):
SecuROM 7.00.00.0051 detected -> C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Deluxe\Base\TSBin\Sims2.exe
SecuROM 7.00.00.0071 detected -> C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Deluxe\EP2\TSBin\Sims2EP2.exe