I fired up RTW - Alexander the other day only for the thing to die after launching. The same thing happened for Barbarian Invasion then RTW itself. I reinstalled both Alexander, and BI, but the same thing happened.
Going online, it seemed a lot of people had this problem, but got around it with putting their retail code into Steam, which is what I did. It worked, and I ended up with both RTW and BI, under the Gold edition. Sadly, Alexander did not show up, save as a separate Steam purchase... I have the disk, but there are no serials for it. I tried to get my mods to work, and after a lot of trial and error, was able to get Viking Invasion2 to work on BI. I tried long and hard to get Rome Total Realism 6.2 to work but it doesn't like Steam. Eventually I downloaded Europa Barbarorum v1.2 and set that up for Steam (I found I just didn't like the vanilla version any more). I found I had to uninstall "disk" RTW before installing Steam RTW, as apparently registry entries are shared which can cause run problems.
Now all this was a bit of a surprise to me as last year I'd played RTW without any problems on Win7. After looking around for a while I got my answer... Last September 2015, because of a security weakness in Windows 7 and 8, Microsoft did an update called KB3086255 that disables the disk drm called "safedisc" (using the file secdrv.sys). RTW, Shogun, MTW and MTW2 (amongst many other disk based games) use this copy protection, so have been made useless (disk versions anyway) by the KB3086255 update.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?698423-Total-War-games-will-no-longer-work-at-all
There are solutions - probably the simplest is to enter these at the command prompt
Before playing...
•To manually start the driver’s service, type the following command:sc start secdrv
After playing...
•To manually stop the driver’s service, type the following command:sc stop secdrv
So if you are using the disk and a Win 7 or 8 OS, you can, in principle, with the above workaround still play your disk based games affected by the update. UNFORTUNATELY... Win10 users can't use this workaround unless they can obtain a copy of secdrv.sys (and then must "certificate" it [whatever that means])so they can start the driver service, but I've no idea whether this will actually work for Win10 users - they'll have to test it, as I haven't got Win10 (and am less inclined to given the potential difficulty I'd have playing my library of existing disk based games that I've built up over the years).
As one of the posters on the TWC thread said...
"Here's a list of Games that use the Secdrv.sys in their protection of the cd. Any games that use the SafeDisk or Securom protection will simply not be playable (on win10). These include all old TW titles.
http://www.gameburnworld.com/protectedgameslist.shtml
So those who have the old TW titles on disk have two options
- Purchase it on Steam
If you see that message in Windows 10 then you are out of luck and the game will not run on Windows 10 There are no known legitimate or safe methods to install or run these older games on Windows 10"
While I'm glad that SEGA authorised Steam to give disk based users access using their disk key for RTW and RTW:BI (although not Alexander), if like me you enjoyed a lot of the mods available for these games, you might see some of the mods becoming inaccessible. Steam seems to cope with mod foldered mods, but not so much mods that needed a separate install of RTW like RTR v6.2. Darthmod you can use, but once installed it overwrites the vanilla files, and reading about it, apparently any updates to RTW will bork it. I looked to see if there was any way on Steam to prevent updates, but there isn't.
So Win 10 is now looking pretty damn unattractive to me. At least I can make some temporary changes to play a lot of disk based games, otherwise rendered inoperable thanks to Microsoft's September update, but it looks like in most cases Win10 will not allow these to play.
And slightly OT:
I'm also wondering whether Win10 is going to be a good move anyway, as there are rumours that it will become a subscription service long before support on Windows 7 and 8 finish. No such thing as a "free lunch"...and I'm getting indigestion at the thought of not being able to play many of my older disc based games.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/microsoft-reveals-successor-windows-10-os-will-be-offered-paid-subscription-service-1501023
https://redmondmag.com/articles/2015/04/01/subscription-model.aspx
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/195592-with-windows-10-microsoft-could-move-to-a-subscription-based-model
Huw's suggestion of migrating to Linux is becoming more attractive as a long term choice...
http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/anyanswers/question/windows-10-service-monthly-subscription
Same thing happened to me with M2TW so I waited for a Steam sale, bit the bullet and repurchased it for 10.00, including the Kingdoms expansion.
Quote from: Gusington on May 02, 2016, 04:43:00 PM
Same thing happened to me with M2TW so I waited for a Steam sale, bit the bullet and repurchased it for 10.00, including the Kingdoms expansion.
You wuz robbed! >:(
https://support.sega.co.uk/hc/en-gb/articles/207291405-Total-War-Rome-1-Medieval-1-2-Gamespy-edtion-Requesting-Admin-Rights-
SEGA say that if you put in your old code into Steam you will get the Steam version for free, which is what I did with RTW. I haven't done it yet with MTW2, as I don't want to mess up any mods I have for it using Kingdoms - apparently you can't use the disk version of RTW/MTW2 and the Steam version concurrently as is messes with the registry. Also Steam is incompatible with a number of good mods as they are not set up to be mod foldered.
I don't tend to play the original MTW2, as I play the original campaign as the retrofit mod using MTW2 Kingdoms, which is unaffected by the Microsoft Update as it doesn't use safedisc.
This link might be helpful...
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7480-WUSF-3601#which
Hey for 10.00 the entirety of M2TW is worth another repurchase for me on Steam, especially to eliminate futzing around with ye olde discs.
Quote from: Gusington on May 02, 2016, 04:43:00 PM
Same thing happened to me with M2TW so I waited for a Steam sale, bit the bullet and repurchased it for 10.00, including the Kingdoms expansion.
Same, although I found M2TW collection Steam Code on sale for $2.50 at Kinguin not too long ago while Steam was running a TW sale.
Sad thing is.. I had already purchased a digital version from Gamersgate years ago (on a sale I'm sure). But it had the limited online activation bullshit and I
really didn't want to deal with (and wait for) customer service to get an install back, after not being able to un-register it.
In other words, I've bought M2TW three fookeen times. All due to DRM issues! :knuppel2: Luckily the last one was dirt cheap.
+1 It's very annoying. I have bought spare disks in case the game disks got damaged. I liked TW THAT much! :) Anyway, if anyone hasn't already bought the Steam version and still has their original disks they should be able to get a "retail" Steam copy free of charge by putting in their disk codes courtesy of SEGA's solution.