Utility breaks the shackles of SafeDisc optical disc DRM for retro gamers — SafeDiscShim restores playability for classic PC titles

American McGee's Alice (2000) is one of many classic PC games released on disc with the SafeDisc DRM that hasn't worked on Windows since 2015. With SafeDiscShim, this classic is now fully playable off disc without need to circumvent its protection.

SafeDisc DRM, a long-time plague for purveyors of classic PC games, finally has a fix for modern Windows PCs called SafeDiskShim, which is now available on Github. While SafeDisc is attached to a number of dearly-beloved PC games, the solution itself has been long criticized for poor security, general invasiveness, and even just being plain ol' ineffective in its earliest releases. For these reasons, Microsoft warned about these issues in 2007, and finally just outright disabled the SafeDisc driver on Windows in 2015.

There were 70 total Windows titles (and two Mac OS X games) released with SafeDisc DRM between 1999 and 2008, according to a UVList.net database on the subject. Notable developers in this lineup with SafeDisc physical releases include Infinity Ward (Call of Duty 4), Ensemble Studios (Age of Empires), Ubisoft (Prince of Persia, the original Assassin's Creed), Bethesda (Morrowind), and many more.