# Solved: stronghold 2 wont start



## lilLB (Mar 19, 2006)

i have the cd in the drive and i go to start the game and a message saying "A required security module can not be activated. This program can not be executed." comes up.. what does this mean?


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## Boingo (Apr 1, 2006)

Usually with stronghold this means that it may have detected a virtual drive creator, examples would be Daemon tools, or Alcohol 120%, Power ISO. These are usually used when people steal the game images and mount them on the virtual drive to play them without paying, this is not always the case, but the companies take the first step and try to get the game to deny anyone with those installed if it can find them. You should really look on the stronghold 2 forums for the answer, I would be surprised if they couldn't tell you. Anyways if any of those are installed you may have to uninstall them, or hide the drives to play it. If not, check their forums.


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## lilLB (Mar 19, 2006)

yea i dont have any of those but i emailed tech support so hopefully they get back to me soon


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## Boingo (Apr 1, 2006)

I found this on a site named stronghold heaven. It basically reiterates what I said, just includes things I missed.
Q: When trying to start the game I get this message: "A required security module can not be activated" or "Emulator detected" what do I do?
A: You get that message because the SecuROM copy protection for the game detects Virtual Drive software on your computer. Disable the software in Task Manager (CTRL+ALT+DEL) so it's not running on your computer and try again to start the game.
Here's a list of software that might trigger SecuROM:

Alcohol 120%
BlindWrite
Daemon Tools
Game-Jack
CloneCD
Game Jackal
Xoom Game Clone
CDSpace
Virtual CD
Fantom CD
Anti-Blaxx
GetRight
Virtual Drives
Speaking Clock
Nero ImageDrive

If you don't have any of above software installed or disabling it doesn't work, while having the original Stronghold 2 CD/DVD in the drive reboot your computer, then right-click either the Stronghold 2 icon on the desktop or Stronghold2.exe and click Launch Analysis and a file named AnalysisLog.sr0 will be created and placed in C:\. Zip the file (with WinZIP, 7-zip or a similar program) and send the file as an attachment to [email protected]


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## lilLB (Mar 19, 2006)

i have nero.. but its not called ImageDrive i have Nero BackItUp, Nero Express, and then Nero SmartStart could those cause the problem? i think ive run stronghold since ive had them with no problem but ill see if they are runnin or something


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## Boingo (Apr 1, 2006)

The nero imagedrive is a virtual drive nero will create, so it may be running even if you didn't mean for it to. You may have to uninstall nero fully to play the game.


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## lilLB (Mar 19, 2006)

aww thats awful


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## Boingo (Apr 1, 2006)

You can always reinstall it, so the most it takes out of your time is 10 minute to uninstall, reboot, try the game, if it works then do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight. If it fails, you can always reinstall the program and go ask the makers.


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## lilLB (Mar 19, 2006)

yea tru.. but if nero is the problem then that means i eitha cant use nero or cant play stronghold or i hafta uninstall and reinstall nero everytime i want to play


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## Boingo (Apr 1, 2006)

Maybe, there are many other burners you can use also during the time while you play stronghold 2. You can also install nero after you saved up a bunch of things you want to burn, burn them, uninstall nero and play again. First is first though, check to see if nero is the problem.


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## lilLB (Mar 19, 2006)

it turns out nero is the problem i unistalled it, restarted the computer and stronghold worked fine


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## lilLB (Mar 19, 2006)

oh yea thanks fo all the help too i woulda neva thought nero wuz messing with it thanks a bunch


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## Boingo (Apr 1, 2006)

You are welcome and thanks for telling me. So you know you can now edit the post and mark it as solved so others won't try and come fix something that is fixed.


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## thicks123 (Dec 31, 2007)

Ok i have windows vista. Will stronghold 2 work on it or do i have to run it in a compatability mode?


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