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Legacy "Call of Duty" games and Windows 10


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I have finally left the 20th Century behind me embraced the 21st instead. This meant upgrading to a more robust gaming PC with a Windows 10 o/s.  (@LukeFF would be rightfully bemused that my desktop gaming rig still runs on Windows Vista.)  The Luddite in me still enjoys a number of legacy games. I've successfully installed "Call of Duty Game of the Year" (circa 2003) from CD with key without any patches. However, the game fails to run. No errors occur. Changing "compatibility mode" provides no solution. The same holds true for "Call of Duty United Offensive" and "Call of Duty 2".  These games run successfully on my WinVista machine though . . .
I've done some online research but am leery of the "no CD hacks" solutions. Has anyone in this august company of gamers encountered this (or similar) problems? How can I solve this? Thank you for any and all suggestions.

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Sifting wheat from chaff, this seems to explain things.  https://myonlinesecurity.co.uk/september-2015-windows-updates-kb3086255-breaks-many-games/

"September 2015 Windows updates KB3086255 breaks many games.  Microsoft released twelve (12) bulletins.  Five (5) bulletins are identified as Critical and the remaining seven (7) are rated Important in severity.  The updates address vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows, Microsoft,.NET Framework, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Lync, Microsoft Silverlight, Skype for Business Server, Microsoft Lync Server, Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer."

"This September 2015 Windows update  KB3086255 basically disables secdrv.sys which is an anti-piracy copy protection that is used by many games developers and some other software companies. The driver, secdrv.sys, is used by games which use Macrovision SafeDisc. Without the driver, games with SafeDisc protection would be unable to play on Windows."

  • If you see that message on Windows 7 or Windows 8 / 8.1 then  use the fix described earlier in the Microsoft KB
  • 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

Would really like to make these games work on Win10.  The quest continues . . .

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RESOLUTION:

Michael, I  was able to accomplish the success required.  It wasn't as painful as a root canal nor as futile as getting a date with Kate Upton.  Still, a day's intended for gaming wound up being spent as a day of research and trouble-shooting.  In the end, I downloaded the No-CD patches from GameBurnWorld to make these work.

GameBurnWorld - Game Fixes No-CD patches at URL = http://www.gameburnworld.com/pcgamefixesc.shtml
These are small patches which enable you to patch your game and play it without the CD in the drive. These Game Fixes are called No-CD patches.  I downloaded the ones for Single Player modes.

Call of Duty - installed the game with no patches; used the CallofDutyv1.0NoCDFixedexeEng

  1. Within "Call of Duty Game of the Year Edition" folder
  2. Renamed application file "CoDSP" to CoDSP with disk"
  3. Extracted and copied GameBurnWorld "CoD2SP"

Call of Duty United Offensive - installed the game with no patches; used the CallOfDutyUnitedOffensive1.0NoCDFixedexeEng

  1. Within "Call of Duty Game of the Year Edition" folder
  2. Renamed application file "CoDUOSP" to CoDUOSP with disk"
  3. Extracted and copied GameBurnWorld "CoDUOSP"

Call of Duty 2 - installed the game with no patches but had to use the CallOfDuty2v1.3NoDVDFixedexeEng.  It seems my DVD version of the game came with Patch 3 already applied.

  1. Within "Activision / Call of Duty 2" folder
  2. Renamed application file "CoD2SP_s" to CoD2SP_s with disk"
  3. Extracted and copied GameBurnWorld "CoD2SP_s"

The games all now load successfully and let you play.

I earn my living in IT project management.  I find hacking worrisome and piracy criminal.  In this case the executable at GameBurnWorld still requires a legally loaded game with all the game folders and components in order to work.  The No-CD fix appears to bypass the Windows KB3086255 update (and others like it).  This allowed these legacy games to load and play on Windows 10.  I only wish the game company itself, in this case Activision, would have made this easier for us to do.  

Look for the No-CD patches applicable to the games you're trying to run.  Good luck and good gaming.

Edited by Badger73
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7 hours ago, Badger73 said:

Look for the No-CD patches applicable to the games you're trying to run.  Good luck and good gaming.

As I am on a Mac and have a different set of problems, I don't think this path would lead to a solution for me, but I do appreciate the good wishes and I am glad to hear that it worked out for you even at the cost of a lost weekend.

Michael

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  • 3 years later...

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