I'm having a hard time finding information on the various versions of Securom. Can someone here provide some more information.
In short: I want to know what every version of Securom actually does (well... prevent).

Some background:
I have this game: https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/warhammer-40000-dawn-of-war-the-complete-collection
PC Gaming Wiki says it uses Securom 5:
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Warhammer_40,000:_Dawn_of_War
Now, PC Gaming Wiki is a great website - but it lacks information on the DRM used on all the different editions of retail games. e.g. the German version of a certain retail game can contain a completely different copy protection than the Russian version.

I have a working backup, so I'm not asking for any info on circumventing DRM.

Why would you want to? It’s bad, very bad. Unless your working on some security protection module that blocks everything to do with securom, do everything in your power to avoid or remove it. There really is no valid reason to have its software anything near your hardware, it is a virus. If you have a disc with it on, and you can’t find a nocd, burn the disc just to be sure (and don’t put the ashes in green recycle bin.

What he said. ^

Securom is plague. And it will ruin your system. Don't play with it unless you know whatchadoing.

It's purely out of interest! (call it dorky/geeky if you like) ;-)

Well, it’s your hardware I suppose. Anyway, best place to start would be their own infestation site:
https://support.securom.com/faq_general.html
I would highly recommend you don’t do anything with it on any hardware you want to work for more than 10 minutes, in fact modern windows will not run it all, the only actual drm software I can think of which has been software blocked.

Seen it already, and not surprised that a DRM maker is not providing us with a detailed historic overview.
And like I said, it's purely theoretic interest. I have backups of all my disc based games with their DRM removed.

They mainly give publishers a warm fuzzy while preventing the people who bought the game from being able to play it now or in the future while also screwing up their system.

These companies purposely are very secretive and outright lie about this software while also getting the media to parrot their lies, below are the issues I've personally seen with SECUROM:
https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=61351&p=686061&hilit=securom#p686061
https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=4396&p=77138&hilit=securom#p32795

Secrets and lies persist with Denuvo as well. You are best off not buying any software infested with any of this crap
and if you do strip it out of the game so it doesn't run.

My opinion is it is nasty. A few years ago now it bricked one of my DVD-ROM drives, so i now use the SecuROM Removal tool when i need too:

https://support.securom.com/removaltool.html

Also this page has some info others might also like to read:

'How to Play PC Games That Require SafeDisc or SecuROM DRM on Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, and Vista':

https://www.howtogeek.com/230773/HOW-TO-PLAY-PC-GAMES-THAT-REQUIRE-SAFEDISC-OR-SECUROM-DRM-ON-WINDOWS-10-8.1-8-7-AND-VISTA/

^ ^ That Crysis Maximum box in the first picture in the last link is something I also own.

My worst experience with Securom has to Red Alert 3 and Bioshock. (Securom 7?)
Limited activations! (3 or 5?)

Sorry for the necro but I think this thread is relevant for my question.

I would like to buy retail games from mid-2000 which won't be available digitally anymore due to expensive licences (Scarface the world is yours, the Godfather...) but are protected with a Securom disk check.
Is a disk check really less intrusive for my pc than a full Securom protection (limited activations, datas written on the hard drive...) ?

Their FAQ is not very helpful (Link)

I remember those. It was silly but realistically, why did you ever need to install it five times in one go? Once you were done with the game, it deactivated one of the five and that was that.

I personally found the answer was yes for two reasons:-

1. "NoCD's" that removed simple disc checks were very common (and often done for reasons other than piracy), and often involved patching one very obvious line of code. So commonplace that I don't think I ever owned a disc based game without removing it in about 5 minutes of purchase.

2. Some of the simpler disc checks merely detected if a drive appeared optical and / or had a certain volume name. These simple checks often couldn't tell the difference between an actual disc in an actual optical drive, vs a virtual optical drive mounted from a backed up .ISO file of the disc using software like Virtual CloneDrive, DAEMON Tools, etc, which basically faked a "pass" for a disc check without even patching the disc check out.

You can find nocd’s patches for most, just ensure you throughly check anything you download with various antiv and virustotal. I would not install securom or any of those, they are worse than viruses. You can disc image as well, I did all my physical collection years ago. Sometimes though it’s simply easier to download a working copy