I understand the appeal of programs like that, but they're technically cracked versions of the Steam client, so we won't be going into that here.

Personally I'd prefer not to use such tools.

I'd much prefer VALVe to allow one account to be used simultaniously on multiple machines (like they did for the first 5 years) or to remove the library lock from Family Sharing.

However they're got my games held hostage and the publishers refuse to honour their side of the license agreement.

The publishers for every game we play have been fairly compensated, and games like UT2004 which 4 of us play simultaniously they've been compensated 4 time over.

So, I know this isn't technically a game, but since it's kind of needed to play almost everything we talk about here, I figured it'd be a good idea to post about it anyway:

From what I can tell, Windows 10 itself seems to be completely DRM-free, and it never needs to be activated.

To test this, I installed Windows 7, 8, 10 Technical Preview, and the final version of 10 in a virtual VMWare environment. I then set my actual PC clock ahead 30 years to see what would happen. Windows 7 immediately started to throw up notifications, kindly informing me that my unactivated copy isn't genuine, and that my grace period had expired. Windows 8 did the same, but required a serial number to even install it in the first place, and even Windows updates were disabled. The Windows 10 Technical Preview outright expired, and it wouldn't even boot the system unless I turned the clock back again (so technically, you can use the Technical Preview forever as long as your system clock remains between July 1, 2015 and October 1, 2015).

Windows 10, the final version available for free as an ISO straight from Microsoft, did NOTHING differently. No popups, no non-genuine warnings, no mention of a grace period... Everything functioned identically to "30 years" ago. I thought it was just me, but someone else online has tested installing a copy without a key as a PC's main OS, and nothing happened there, either.

The only restriction I've noticed is that the customization options are disabled (wallpaper, color scheme, etc.), but it's so easy to manage that stuff with third-party software that it isn't even funny. I really think we finally have an actual DRM-free version of Windows (if you don't mind the purely aesthetic restrictions), and that just makes me giddy. I've upgraded my copy of Windows 8 directly through Microsoft, but a future-proof Windows with no cracks makes me smile.

You know that the Windows 10 license from the "free upgrade offer" ist tied to your hardware ID and not to your product key? That's why you don't have to enter a key (they are all the same generic ones) for reinstallation.

And you are right, it's not a game, it's not on Steam and it's everything but DRM free.

You're right, the upgrade key is tied to your hardware ID. That's why I installed Windows 10 and tried all of this WITHOUT upgrading first; it was a completely clean installation straight from the ISO, NOT an upgrade, and the genetic key never locked anything down even in an environment that did not have a previous version of Windows installed beforehand.

The reason I posted it here is because a lot of people say that it doesn't matter if a game has DRM or not as long as the operating system itself does, and this totally does away with that worry. What good is figuring out what has DRM and what doesn't if we have nothing on which to run those games in the end anyway?

Anyway, just an interesting thing I found that I thought people would find interesting (and yes, it was in fact related to the main conversation here).

It appears with the latest patch, Dungeons 2 (Linux version) now contains DRM. Instead of continuing without finding steam, it auto starts steam now.

Oh, that's disappointing to hear. If you get the chance, can you try to rename the main Steam program file or folder and try to run the game again? The Dreamcast Collection version of Sonic Adventure did the same thing, but if the game can't find Steam, it still runs; it only launches Steam if the client is where it's supposed to be.

It tried it, and It just hangs at the initial black screen, and the same for removing or changing the steam*.so and libsteam*.so files as well...

I think this might be kind of interesting to you and others, as I have not heard of anyone else doing this (or I am blind and didn't see it anywhere):
I have been able to get a few games (can't remember which ones right yet) running by replacing the original *.so files with the Half-Life 2 *.so files and it seems to work for a few games. I assume the HL2 libraries were drm free to begin with, and the new game just reads it as not needing Steam. I am sure that would work for the *.DLL's on Windows as well.

Many of the old games will work like this, If I remember correctly I ran Batman Arkham Asylum this way by using the steam_api.dll from Rise of the Triad (2013 version).

Ooh, interesting! I've actually tried that in Windows with some files, but I've never gotten it to work; I've never tried it in Linux. You must have picked a really good combination of games to try, and yes, the Half-Life 2 files are indeed DRM-free. I'm going to have to try some of this later on.

As for Dungeons 2, it looks like someone already updated the wikia, so we're good there. It's still too bad to hear about that, but I do know a couple of other games have done that in the past, too.

There was an infurating person on the Steam Forum that claimed Steamworks wasn't DRM, its that programmers are refusing let the program run if the steam_init fails.

I was gifted the game "Dark Arkana: The Carnival" (thank you again V3) and I can confirm that it does not need the Steam client to run, save, or store achievements (it has ingame achievements). The only thing you need to do is to rename the steam folder or the steam.exe file.

Create different accounts for your children then. Then you can share your games with them. Yes it is inconvenient and you shouldn't have to do that and the library lock should be removed. It avoids downloading cracks, which you shouldn't do though because you could get all manner of nasty things on your hard drive and is almost certainly illegal anyway.

I added Kung Fury: Street Rage to the list, tested in Windows.