When attempting to start Flight Simulator 2004, I receive a warning stating " Login as administrator required"

[New EDITS - 15\5\20. Mainly deleting Win7\8 comments which shouldn't be necessary on the Win10 forum five years

after the release of Win10 , and Arnie's post addresses how to deal with the issue on Win7\8 anyway.]

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(original comment to Brian Mc ...)

I have not confirmed that this applies to FS-04, but do know it applies to CFS2 & 3 (released in 2000).

- Assuming your are using the disk based version of the game it may not be loading because of DRM Blocking

If you 'open' the games CD and find the file secdrv.sys, read on (if not read on anyway ;)  ).

- If you are not using the disk based version of the game, DRM Blocking is not an issue.

[EDIT: Some games have patches that remove the DRM (or make it inert ), allowing you to

run the game without the disk, so these games will not be affected by DRM Blocking if fully patched.]

[EDIT: Some games that use SafeDisk will not install from the disk. In this instance if you copy all the files from

the disk(s) to a folder on your desktop, or other location of your choice (this folder gets deleted after installing),

the game should install successfully from that location. ]

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[EDIT: 4 May 16 - Since starting this post I have found that some game publishers will give you a Steam

key for your disk based game ( 2K games is one). EA  are also allowing the transfer of some disk keys to

your Origin account. I haven't verified if UbiSoft is doing the same.]

[ EDIT: 8\20:  Rockstar will now redeem the disc code for GTA 4 for an download version. This helps with SecuROM and GFWL issues. ]

- MS could have saved a  whole lot of people running around in circles if they had included a proper error regarding DRM blocking,

when they built this so called security feature into Win10. Couldn't be bothered, or didn't realise how many people still use their old disc's ?

- The only way to circumvent DRM Blocking on Win10, is with a noCD patch...

Fortunately, these old DRM were never effective anyway. 90% of these old games have a noCD fix/hack available
to circumvent the CD check.    ---here---

What the fixes do is trick the game into believing the CD check has been completed.

The site linked above has been around since '98 (judging by the copywrite date). I've been downloading from them for over ten years,

and have never had security issue with any fixes. I've also scanned fixes I've downloaded for games other forum users have

inquired about that I don't have. I mention this because your browser or AV may try to block the site. This is not because they

detect a virus, but because of the nature of the files (hacked) being downloaded.

- [EDIT: Removed link to site with long list of games their DRM because it is no longer working.  ] 

The best clue if a game used SafeDisk is if  secdrv.sys is on the games disk, or you see a secdrv.sys file in the games install folder .

- Some versions of SecuROM, StarForce  and older versions of Tages are incompatible with 64bit OS's ,

but this is a different and older issue. The only fix for this is also an noCD patch.

.