Ok, I bought The Sims and all of the expansion packs (a LOT of money) for my girlfriend and I. I bought two copies of Superstar, hoping to play it on both my computer and hers. I installed them on her computer and left her with one of the copies of Superstar. Everything works great for her. I also bought Splinter Cell.

I then installed The Sims Deluxe on my machine, and I get an Access Denied error, saying "Please login with administrator access and try again"... well, I'm no retard. I do have administrator access. I even went into safe mode and logged in as the Administrator and got this same error. I get the same error when I try to run the Splinter Cell exe.

I did some research on the internet, and found that a lot of people were having the same problem with other games. On one forum an Installshield Developer said that it had to do with SafeDisc not having the proper drivers. The game installed fine, but the exe won't run. I've tried talking to tech support, and all they told me was to do a non-destructive recovery, which is pretty damn destructive, as it basically reinstalls Windows.

I've downloaded a patch from Macrovision, with no change. I've also downloaded the SafeDisc patch from Microsoft with no change. I've downloaded unwrappers, but they were for older versions of SafeDisc (Superstar uses v2.9.40, i'm not sure about Deluxe, but probably the same, as well as Splinter Cell).

I really need help here...

-Joe

PS I'm really at the end of my rope here...

Here is what the Installshield guy had to say... It's near the bottom...

http://www.gametalk.com/talk/pc/meda...t/56020644.htm

OS: WinXP Home
IDE Driver: 5.1.2600.1106
CD-Rom: CyberDrv CWO58D CD-R/RW

Guys, I'm really get desperate... I've bought over $300 in games that don't work...

It looks to me (from reading the article and as stated) that you need to install the service for the secdrv.sys (SafeDisc Launcher). I have no problems of this nature with SafeDisc, so by clarifying this, I hope someone (*cough*giovanni*cough*) knows a fix .

okay what OS you running ? what are you IDE drivers ??? if XP have you put on the windows xp safedisc patch ?

Ok, sorry i wasn't more clear. I'm running WinXP Home, I have installed the Microsoft SafeDisc patch (updatesecdrv.exe or something like that... it didn't work).

I'm ignorant when it comes to IDE drivers, so I'll just cut and paste what is in Device Manager...

Primary IDE Channel: 5.1.2600.1106 (7/1/2001)
Secondary IDE Channel: 5.1.2600.1106 (7/1/2001)

I have sent an email to Macrovision, asking to speak to an engineer, but, I think I'll send another and be more specific, and ask about the Safedisc Launcher and secdrv.sys...

I hope that info helped

really, you guys don't know how aggravating this is, and how long it has taken for someone to respond to me

Does ANYONE have ANY suggestions...?

Maybe how to disable SafeDisc, a NoCD hack on The Sims or Splinter Cell?

Or maybe someone knows how to get SafeDisc to work?

Anyone?

This is a major problem with CD copy protection. It's buggy too often. I can only say that you MUST join a game forum and flood the devekopers with posts about this crap.

Did you know that a version of SecuROM for Neverwinter Nights *blacklisted* LITEON burners!!? The workaround was to unplug the burner from the IDE port. This nonsense lasted for over a week before the fools at Bioware decided that it was a bad idea. One of the last official patches for NWN patched out SecuROM altogether.

As for a possible fix, secdrv.sys is conflicting with your chipset drivers, so re-install them after imaging your boot drive:

for Intel - install v-5.x
for VIA - try the latest
for others - visit your vendor's website.

Do you have a guest icon activated on your puter? If so go to manage and then to local users and groups and the select group folder and disable the guest function. If you installed sp2 this is a precaution they have taken to prevent anyone executing a program on your computer....

hm. look at the age of the thread...

damn, it's OLD!

A very constructive post, congrats.

By the time he had this problem, SP2 wasnt even announced