PSU in 64-bit Windows 7

On Saturday, I blogged about my results testing PSU in Windows 7. All of my attempts to run the game were foiled by GameGuard's inability to want to run in the new OS.

However, those tests were run in the x86 (32-bit) version of Windows 7. Yesterday, I tried the game on an x64 (64-bit) version of the OS, and for whatever reason, GameGuard actually runs. This means that you can play PSU in Windows 7, if you're lucky enough to have a 64-bit processor in your computer.

You do have to slightly tweak GameGuard to run the game, however. The instructions to do so have been provided by another player on the PSU official forums. It seems that the problem is caused by a new version of the GameGuard updater that isn't compatible with the current beta build of Windows 7 (yet an old version is? How the hell does that happen?).

Note that you must have a fresh, unpatched copy of the game on your computer to make this work. If you've already tried to run PSU before doing this, you'll probably have to uninstall and reinstall the game.

Once the game is installed, open up the PSU folder and look for a GameGuard.des file in the directory. Right-click it, then select Properties. In the window that appears, look for a Security tab. Click that, then select the Edit button under the "Group or User Names" box. The following window should appear (without the little red markups, of course):



For each user in the "Group or User Names" box, set Write permissions to Deny. Once you've finished, click OK to save your changes. Doing this tells Windows that the GameGuard updater is permitted to run, but that it is not allowed to modify itself, meaning that the updater can never update to the new, game-breaking version.

This fix is within the Terms of Service -- GameGuard is still allowed to patch itself and run -- so you don't have to worry about getting banned if you do this.

Note that the game may still not run perfectly after you apply this fix. Some players, after downloading the game patches and restarting, complained that there was no sound in Network Mode. I did not have this problem, however, so if you have trouble with the game it may be a hardware-specific issue.

Finally: this fix applies only for the 64-bit (x64) version of Windows 7. You'll continue to get the same old "initialization failed" error if you try it in x86 Windows 7.