Technology

Apr 21, 07 | From Ruckus to iTunes

WARNING: This post is outdated.  If you have updated Ruckus in say, the last 4 months, this probably will not work.  Either way, you should check out the comments in case someone has already answered your question.  I really haven’t looked into it, but I can tell you that now your best resource is going to be the Doom9 Forums.

NOTE: This tutorial is only meant to work for Windows XP and older.  IF you use Windows Vista, I would recommend checking out the Doom9 Forums for a more up-to-date solution.

The following is a tutorial on how to keep Microsoft from dictating where you can play your free music, i.e., how to remove DRM encryption from audio files downloaded through the Ruckus network.

If you have Windows Media Player 11, start here:

The newest versions of WMP have more heavily encrypted DRM keys, so to make this process at all possible you must “roll back” to WMP 10 or earlier.

  1. Go to the Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs
  2. Make sure the “Show Updates” check-box is checked, then scroll down to Windows Media Player 11 and click “Change/Remove”
  3. Follow the on-screen prompts to roll-back, then click “Restart” when finished
  4. After restarting, return to Add/Remove Programs
  5. In the Windows XP – Software Updates section, click Windows Media Format 11 Runtime, and then click Change/Remove.
  6. In the first confirmation dialog box that appears, click OK.
  7. In the second confirmation dialog box that appears, select the Do you want to continue with the rollback? Check box, and then click OK.
  8. When the rollback process is complete (it might take several minutes to complete), click Restart.
  9. After restarting, return to Add/Remove Programs
  10. Click Microsoft User-Mode Driver Frameworks Feature Pack 1.0, and then click Remove.
  11. Follow the instructions that appear in the Software Update Removal Wizard.
    If the Wudf01000 confirmation dialog box appears, click Yes to continue. When the software removal process is complete (it might take several minutes to complete), click Finish.
  12. Return to Add/Remove programs
  13. Again scroll down to the Windows updates section and make sure that all Windows Media Player associated updates are removed (you can always get them back).

At this point you will need to download the “roll-back fix” which can be found here. Be sure to follow the instructions included in the .zip file. Just in case, here they are:

  1. Make sure Windows Media Player is closed.
  2. Extract all the contents in the included “programfiles.zip” file into your program files directory (Overwite any existing files)
  3. Then click start, run, type “services.msc” and look for “Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service” and double click on it, and DISABLE it.
  4. Then you need to make sure that you are showing your hidden files in folder options in Windows, and then browse to this folder…C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\DRM\…delete every file in that folder. (if you don’t see any files, then you do not have your folder options set right to see hidden files, you MUST do that first, then delete all the files you see in that folder)
  5. Now go here, and click “upgrade” (This step must be done in Internet Explorer): click here
  6. Delete your existing “blackbox-keys.txt” in your My Documents folder (or make a backup of it if you want, just get it out of that folder)
  7. When finished, close your browser, and now open Ruckus and either download a new song or renew a license of a previous song. You can also open up Windows Media Player, go to URGE and download a song.

Now that your keys are updated, and you have successfully rolled back, you can continue below.

If you have Windows Media Player 10 or earlier, or just completed the previous steps, start here:

You will need FairUse4WM. You can get it here. All you have to do now is open the program you just downloaded, click “Recover Keys”, and select which songs you would like to strip. You are able to choose the destination folder, as well. Finally, just import the songs into iTunes and it will automatically convert to .mp3 format.

As a last note, be sure not to update Windows Media Player automatically, as this will ruin all your hard work.
Hope this is helpful!

143 comments

05/03/07 | Jessica W

Ummm… so you’re my hero. And… this was really (well.. mostly) easy to understand. So thanks!!! when I read on the Ruckus FAQ that i couldn’t put it on my ipod… ummm… my heartbroke. So this is awesome!

05/04/07 | etano

Good to hear some positive feedback. Glad I could help you.

05/08/07 | Danny Campa

Hi, you answered my question on yahoo!, i did every step, but when i went to the folder All Users there was no DRM folder, and i had the hidden folders shown, if you could e-mail me with some advice it would be a lot of help, thank you

05/09/07 | dave

i don’t see Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service when i run services.msc. i believe this is why i cannot upgrade when using the http://services.wmdrm.windowsmedia.com/indivSite link (the “upgrade” button is greyed out). stuck–help!

05/09/07 | etano

Danny:

If in XP and your DRM folder is not there in C:\Documents and Settings\
Make sure show hidden folders is enabled. (I know you already said it is but never hurts to check again) In Windows Explorer (you won’t find this option in Internet Explorer two different programs) go to Tools->Folder Options. Then Select The “View” Tab look for the heading Hidden Files and Folders and make sure “show hidden files and folders” is checked click Apply next look and see if “hide extension for known file types” and “hide protected operating system files” is unchecked if they are not uncheck them then hit Apply again, then Ok. Leave there and look in “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users” again, if it’s still not there head over to the Control Panel.

Go to add remove programs make sure “Show Updates” is checked and look for anything ANYTHING related to windows media player 11 and uninstall specifically you are looking for is “Windows Media Player runtime” to remove, but it doesn’t hurt to remove anything else.
Restart/reboot after the uninstall look once more “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users.
If you still see nothing, try to launch WMP depending on what type of upgrade you did for WMP it might revert back to version 9 or 10 or give you an error about missing this file or that file and needs to be reinstalled.
At this point you have 3 choices you can.
1) Revert to WMP 9 using your XP install disc by adding it via add/remove programs and use the Indiv site to get the WMP Indiv Key.
2) Install ms version of WMP 10 that you can download from the ms WMP site, again after installing using the Indiv site to get the Indiv key.
2) Or install WMP 11 beta 2 (google search), and once again visiting the Indiv site to get a previous version of the Indiv key that works with Fair use.

Now of all the choices choice 3 is the safest bet cause if you use 9 or 10 the site in question might require an update to version 11 and they will use WMP 11 final and then you are right back where you started.
Once they see you are using WMP 11 most sites won’t try to get you to update, what you might get is ms telling you to update from beta to final with the little pop-up boxes of theirs in WMP.

05/09/07 | etano

Dave:

I too encountered this issue when I tried rolling back the first time. However, my solution then was to reinstall WMP 11, i.e. update your WMP as windows update wants, then begin the process again. You may want to check the Doom9 forums for further help if it does the same thing the second time: click here

05/12/07 | Phaedra

I followed all of the instructions, and I think/hope that I followed them correctly. After downloading FairUse, I opened it clicked Recover Keys, and then OK twice. I went to My Documents–>My Music–>Ruckus Player, and then I clicked an artist and then a track but then a dialog box pops up with “no license available for specified file”. By any chance, Would you know where I went wrong?
Also, the “blackbox-keys.txt” file reappears in My Documents after I continually delete it.
If you have any solutions I’d really appreciate it.
Thanks,

05/14/07 | Marilyn

Hey, I have encountered some problems and was hoping you could help me out. When I open FairUse4WM, it says that I have 2 keys loaded, but when I press recover, I get this message:

Extraction in progress on “Indivbox.key” 11.0.5497.6285 — Please wait.
Phase 0: Blocks: 1335 Large 6 Small, Errors: 0,0 Candidates: 5,3,2
AES KEY: f4 09 db 6f cc 24 b9 8b 84 cf 19 9e ca 6d 2d d7
Testing 1538 possibilities for primary private key.
Completed. Primary and 1 secondary ECC key recovered (0 bogus).

It says that DrmClien.DLL has version 10.0.0.3802 and initially the program said it was using IBX: indivbox.key 11.0.5497.6285

I rolled back to windows media 10, so I’m stuck and confused.

Also, when I just try to proceed and add files to convert it says that the song doesn’t seem to be licensed to me. Do you have any ideas of how I can fix my problem?

05/14/07 | etano

First, did you follow my tutorial or some one elses?

I have seen this before, and it occurred when all the previous DRM files are not deleted. The DRM has been rolled back through WMP, but there are still exisiting 11.0.5etc. files. So, first make sure you completely delete the hidden DRM folder as shown above. Also, make sure you deleted your blackbox-keys.txt in your My Documents folder. This will delete all your current licenses. Once you are done, you can then reacquire the keys through Ruckus by right-clicking on the music file. Hope that helps!

05/14/07 | Marilyn

Hi, it’s me again. I used your tutorial and started from the steps of rolling back to media 10 from 11. I deleated the files in DRM…it’s odd it seems like files keep popping up in that folder and the blackbox-keys.txt in my My Documents folder. When I open Fairuse4WM, I still have two keys loaded but when i press recover keys, it says the IBX components do not appear to be present. Im not sure what you mean by reacquire the keys through Ruckus by right-clicking on the music file. When I try to open ruckus it tells me I have to upgrade some of the DRM components on my computer…any other suggestions?

05/14/07 | Marilyn

I might have done something…now i have no keys loaded, but the same message comes up…

05/16/07 | etano

Once you have completed the tutorial and all your keys are gone, you must reacquire at least one set of licenses before FairUse4WM will work. You can do this by opening Ruckus, right clicking a music file, and select “Renew License”. It should be at the bottom of the pop-up menu. This will download the DRM again, which FairUse4WM will use and strip.

Also, be careful not to update Windows Media Player after you complete this tutorial because it will reverse any progress you have made.

05/16/07 | Marilyn

Thanks for all of your help!!! I got it to work!! You are amazing!!

05/17/07 | Phaedra

This worked perfectly! Thank you so much!!

05/20/07 | sage

Everything was working great. I ran it through fairuse5wm and it was happy, and i can play the songs through windows media player now, but when i try converting it in itunes it says its still protected. any thoughts? and thanks for all the info thus far

05/20/07 | Steve

So for some reason the sharing center did not show up when performing the run step. I saw earlier in the thread that you responded to simply re-install WMP 11 and begin again. I did this again and still no go. I advanced through the rest of the steps anyway hoping perhaps its lack of presence meant it was already disabled, but when I got to the blackbox-keys step, I couldn’t locate that either. It wasn’t in My documents, and I even ran a search that turned up no results even when looking for hidden and system files. If there is any advice you have for this, I would appriciate it greatly. Thanks.

05/21/07 | etano

Sage:

I have not encountered this problem before. It would seem that fairuse4wm is successfully stripping the DRM since it is playable in windows media player. Otherwise you could only play it in Ruckus. Can you play it in any other media player (e.g. quicktime, creative, real audio, etc.) You might try downloading a utility to convert .wma format to .mp3, and then try importing into iTunes. Other than that, I’m not sure. You could try consulting the Doom9 forums.

05/21/07 | etano

Steve:

It seems logical that the sharing center might not show up, but the blackbox-keys files should be there as long as you have downloaded at least one file through Ruckus (thus acquiring the license for it). What might have happened is when you re-installed WMP 11, it updated your DRM, and thus no files has yet to acquire a key. So, I hate to tell you this, but what you may try is once again re-installing WMP 11. Upgrade it totally. Then download a couple files through Ruckus. Finally, repeat the tutorial. To be totally honest, I am not sure why a lack of the keys files would upset the rest of the process, but this is just something to try.

05/29/07 | Stacey

So what happens if you get a message from a song you’re trying to import that says, “the file…cannot be imported because it does not appear to be a valid exported file” ?? Like most of the songs work, but some random ones give me that message and i don’t understand. I used FairUse to take off the DRM but it’s still not working.

06/06/07 | Jake

I followed all the steps but while i was running fairuse I got the message “IBX components do not appear to be present” when I try to recover keys. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

06/13/07 | etano

Stacey:

I am actually not positive about that one. Have you tried reacquiring the license for the particular songs and/or just redownloading them?

Jake:

You need to reacquire the license for at least one song for your keys to be present. Did you do this?

06/14/07 | Jessi

Please help! I did not find that thing in the services folder so I’m not sure if that’s a problem. When I deleted stuff in the DRM folder some of them just reappeared. My problem is that I get the error “wma does not appear to be licensed to you.” when using that software to convert the files. Any suggestions?!?!

Jessica

06/14/07 | Jessi

Oh and PS… When I try to renew my licenses in Ruckus, they all fail!!! I was having that problem lately before I tried doing this… Any suggestions?

Jessica

06/15/07 | etano

Jessi

I’m not sure what you mean by “services folder”. If you mean running “services.msc” and diabling “Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service”, this is not too important, but make sure you at least try and do this. As far as the DRM folders reappearing, this should only occur after you renew your licenses through Ruckus. If you feel they are reappearing randomly, this is a problem. It means that somehow either windows, WMP, or Ruckus has updated software licensing. On top of that is the fact that you can’t renew your licenses in Ruckus. This leads me to think Ruckus has changed something about their DRM format. So…try redownloading the actual files. They should come with licenses. If that doesn’t work, try checking the Doom 9 forums. If you can’t find anything there about an updated format, then try the whole process one more time. Hope this helps!

06/17/07 | Carissa

So I have a hacked version of windows and so I can not bring my windows media player down to 10 I have tried to hack it, But it didn’t work cause I don’t know much about that but I tried. Anyway is there anyway you can use it in 11 there is no way i can downgrade it, that i know of. Thanks for the help.

06/17/07 | etano

Carissa

Yeah, so I am pretty sure that it shouldn’t really matter if you have an illegal copy of windows since windows media player, itself, is free. You should completely uninstalling windows media player, then do a google search for version 10, and continue from there. If for some odd reason you are unable to do this, you should check the Doom 9 Forums, as they probably have more recent information. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, this fix works only for WMP10 and earlier.

06/23/07 | jeff

i cannot delete the some of the DRM files is says they are in use or i dont have access to delete them

06/24/07 | etano

Jeff

Make sure you are logged in as an Administrator. Make sure you do not have WMP running, or Ruckus, or really anything that could possibly be using DRM protected material. If neither of these things work, restart in SAFE MODE, and delete the files then.

06/29/07 | kt

when i went to delete the drm files and it said they were system files..will deleting them mess up my computer? i hope not..bc i did. and also i did everything you said but with the fair use i didnt get any keys to come up. so i tried to burn a cd and i still get problems and it wont let me.

06/29/07 | kt

oh and i never saw this file.. Delete your existing “blackbox-keys.txt” in your My Documents folder

06/29/07 | etano

kt:

First off, deleting the DRM files will not have a negative effect on your computer. You can always get them back by downloading another song from Ruckus. In fact, this is what you should do after you have completed the tutorial in order for fair use to find the keys. As far as the “blackbox-keys.txt” you should make sure you are viewing all hidden files and folders; it will not show up automatically. However, if it is just not there, it shouldn’t matter. If after you download a new song, fair use still doesn’t work, try searching the Doom9 forums.

07/01/07 | Ashley

Hi. I’m not really good at computers, so this is probably pretty dumb. I followed your instructions for windows media 10 or less, and the download for fairuse worked, but I’m still having some problems. When the dialog box that asks me to choose a file popped up, I clicked on my docs-my music-ruckus player, hit open, and nothing happens. I’m not sure if I’m selecting the wrong file, or what. Do you have to select a file?

07/01/07 | etano

Ashley

Yeah, I’m pretty sure fairuse will not let you select entire directories to strip of DRM. You can, however, highlight multiple files at a time by clicking on one file, and while holding SHIFT, select the last file in the directory. OR, you can hold CTRL and highlight files one at a time.

07/07/07 | Stephanie

I just wanted to send you an enormous thank you — ever since WMP11 came out, I’ve been unable to convert my songs, despite using about 20 other tutorials and services and spending hours trying different things.

So thank you, thank you, thank you for giving me my music back!

07/11/07 | Wyatt

I have been able to convert from ruckus for about a month now, and today when i went to download some stuff, it said I needed to upgrade in order for me to download, which I did. now when I try to use Fairuse, I just get warnings telling me that wma requires a private key. please help!

07/11/07 | etano

Wyatt

It is pretty difficult to help you with such limited information, e.g. WMV and/or ruckus version number. All I can recommend is that you redo the above steps.

07/13/07 | Jackie

I followed your steps, and when I tried to renew a license from Ruckus, it tells me that an audio codec is needed to play the file and to go to Web Help to see if the codec is available to download. I can’t play anything in Ruckus. Any info would be helpful.

07/14/07 | ES

I have v10.0 of WMV and v3.0 of ruckus and everytime i try to rip the files using fairuse4wm.exe it says “C:\Documents and Settings\My Documents\My Music\Ruckus Player\Artist\Music file(dc3718481).wma requires a different private key.”

fairuse has been working for me for months now and all of a sudden as of like 2-3 weeks ago its not ripping anything anymore. any help is much appreciated.

07/16/07 | etano

Jackie

Try actually re-downloading the file and see if you get the same error. Can you play other audio files? Also, what version of Ruckus are you using? It may be that this tutorial is depreciated with a newer version, though I doubt it since there are very recent positive results.

ES

Have you in the past few weeks updated anything, e.g. windows, wmp, ruckus, anything? Have you tried renewing the license or re-downloading the file? If neither of these suggestions work, I recommend the Doom9 Forums with has a much larger user base than, well, me.

07/16/07 | Jackie

I re-downloaded files and got the same message, and downloaded completely new files and the same thing happened. I completely removed Ruckus from my computer and re-downloaded the whole program to see if it would automatically download that audio codec that was being described, but the same message appears, and therefore I have the newest version of Ruckus from a few days ago. I have no idea what to do, but I am getting frustrated with the fact that I can not use the program at all anymore. Any advice would be appreciated.

07/17/07 | Ashley

This is probably the most amazing piece of information I have ever come across on the internet. You have officially passed Bear Grylls on the list of the most phenomenal and badass people EVER. And clearly, that’s saying something. :)

07/17/07 | travis

Where is the link to download FairUse4WM?

07/18/07 | etano

Jackie

I’m really not sure what to tell you. I haven’t seen this problem before. I even tried searching the Doom9 forums, but to no avail. (Though you may have better luck if you look there yourself). I can only recommend that you try uninstalling/reinstalling everything again. A huge hassle, I know, so that’s why I recommend trying to find a better solution. You might even try reinstalling your sound drivers themselves, though that seems fairly ridiculous.

Ashley

Thanks! Though I’ve never climbed Mount Everest, so I’m not sure I’m worthy of such praise.

Travis

It was in the original post, but here it is again: FairUse4WM1.3fix. There may be a newer version out. I’d look here: Doom9 Forums (many thanks to Divine Tao).

07/19/07 | Erinn

Hey, this was working fine for a while, but Ruckus recently it’s stopped. I keep getting a message that says the files do not appear to be licensed to me.
Any advice?

07/19/07 | adam

thanks for the tutorial. do you have to import the songs into itunes one at a time?

07/19/07 | etano

Erinn

Are you trying to play your stripped songs in Ruckus or is it the Ruckus songs which won’t play? You may try renewing the license, though after you strip it, you can just use some other program like iTunes to play the music.

Adam

You shouldn’t have to with the newest version of iTunes (7.2)

07/24/07 | Dione

Hello!
I also could see no DRM folder. Also, when I click “Recover Keys” in FairUse, I get a message that reads:
Extraction in progress on “Indiv02.key” 11.0.6000.6324 — Please wait.
Phase 0 : Blocks: 1338 Large 0 Small, Errors: 0,0 Candidates: 5,3,2
Failure – Unable to identify RC4 and AES internal keys.
Any assistance would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,
Dione

07/25/07 | Marilyn

Hey,

I used your tutorial before and got fairuse to work with ruckus, but my computers’ hard drive had to be removed recently to fix something and I might have also installed some windows updates and now it won’t work. I still have two keys loaded in fairuse, but cannot obtain a license for any song in ruckus…it says there is a problem with windows media player (I had already rolled back to 10). Do you know what my problem is??

Thanks,
Marilyn

07/25/07 | jon

Hey there,

So i think i followed your instructions correctly. However, after all was said and done, I tried to drag some songs into my itunes library and an error message came up that said the file “did not have a valid podcast URL. Please check that you have entered the correct URL and try again.” Do you have any idea what’s going on?

07/27/07 | Marilyn

Hey I decided to start everything over again and got to the point of trying to renew my license in ruckus, but it says that the storing of license failed, and then if I double click on a song another box comes up that says: “Object not found! The requested URL was not found on this server. If you entered the URL manually, please check your spelling and try again.” The error number was 404. Do you know what’s going on or what I can do??

Thanks,

Marilyn

08/02/07 | Marie

Dear to whom it may concern,
I was following the directions and all of a sudden I got to this step and do not know how to view hidden files! how do I do this step?

4. Then you need to make sure that you are showing your hidden files in folder options in Windows, and then browse to this folder…C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\DRM\…delete every file in that folder. (if you don’t see any files, then you do not have your folder options set right to see hidden files, you MUST do that first, then delete all the files you see in that folder)

08/02/07 | Marie

also how do you do this step

Delete your existing “blackbox-keys.txt” in your My Documents folder (or make a backup of it if you want, just get it out of that folder)

08/02/07 | Marie

Fairuse says that:

Failure – Unable to identify RC4 and AES internal keys.
Extraction in progress on “Indiv02.key” 11.0.6000.6324 — Please wait.
Phase 0 : Blocks: 1340 Large 0 Small, Errors: 0,0 Candidates: 5,3,2
Failure – Unable to identify RC4 and AES internal keys.

08/02/07 | Marie

It says that i have no keys loaded

“DRMClien.Dll” has version 10.0.0.3802

08/04/07 | Gira

I have Windows Vista Home Edition (32 bit) … When I bring up the add/remove programs list, Windows Media Player isn’t showing up. Also, do you think I’ll be able to “roll-back” Windows media player with Vista?

08/08/07 | David

When I click on Recover Keys and choose the file that I have, I get an error that says “wmplayer.exe has a version number of 10.0.0.3646 where 10.0.0.3931 was expected.” Then it asks me to install WMP from the website. Should I install WMP10 from the website?

08/12/07 | jb

I just went through these steps and it seems to work, I just converted 3 albums, but I didn’t see Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service or blackbox-keys.txt when I looked for them. I just skipped those steps and continued on just to see. It seems to work fine, but is there anything I should be worried about with not finding these two things?

Thanx

08/14/07 | will

hey there:

i got almost all of this done. i’m just confused, because itunes still says that the files from ruckus are protected. i get these errors in itunes when i drag and drop my ’stripped’ music:

One or more of the songs being added are in the protected WMA format, including the song “Doin’ What I Did (2006 Remastered LP Version) (dc5148050).wma”, and could not be converted.
iTunes can only convert unprotected WMA songs. If you have the original CDs for these songs, you can import them using iTunes.

The song “Doin’ What I Did (2006 Remastered LP Version) (dc5148050).wma” could not be converted because it is in protected WMA format.

is it possible that this song is protected by another program? (i tried to import many more than just this one, but got the same error every time).

thanks!! i know this rocks, i just need a little push to get to the end!

08/22/07 | Alex

I am having a similar problem with my computer as the other person with vista. Windows Media player 11 does not show up in the program window. When i try to add a file to my itunes library that i downloaded in Ruckus it says theres an error. if i try to import, the song will not even show up on my computer??? any suggestions??

08/22/07 | Alex

MY songs are also in WMA format if that helps?

08/22/07 | etano

jb

If it works, go with it.

will

Can you play the files in something other than iTunes?

Alex

As far as I know, there is no fix for Vista as of yet. I could be wrong though. Check the Doom9 Forums.

08/23/07 | Michelle

Hi! I didnt have WMP installed at all, so I put in WMP 10 instead of 11 to begin with. I downloaded and ran FairUse like you said, and selected all my files, but it did not let me chose a destination folder and I couldnt figure out where my files are now. If you could help me figure this out or find where I went wrong it would be greatly appreciated!

08/24/07 | jason

i’ve been getting an error message that others have also had problems with. this is what it says:
“Phase 0 : Blocks: 1341 Large 0 Small, Errors: 0,0 Candidates: 8,3,2
Failure – Unable to identify RC4 and AES internal keys.”

i started from the beginning as i just recently got a computer upgrade. the new computer has windows vista and windows media player 11. i followed your instructions step by step, although i wasn’t able to complete this step: “# Then click start, run, type “services.msc” and look for “Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service” and double click on it, and DISABLE it.” nothing appeared that said windows media player network sharing service.

any help would be appreciated,

jason p.

08/27/07 | Ryan

what if you have a mac?
is there any way to use ruckus if you have a mac?
can you download the files and then convert them with something other than fairuse, since fairuse is a .exe file which won’t open on a mac

09/03/07 | Thank You

You are the best ever. It worked perfectly and I’m now really happy.

09/04/07 | James

So there is no way to do this on Vista…?

09/05/07 | john

thanks for all your hard work on helping everyone through this, i know it must be a pain, but i have one problem. i got everything to work and i put the songs through FU4WM and then i transferred them to WM. when i tried to play them, it said there wasnt a license on them. so i renewed the licenses in ruckus. now they play ion WM, but it wont let me bring them to itunes. any thoughts? thanks a lot

09/05/07 | Vanessa

Totally didn’t work for me. Not only could I not find the “WMP Nework Sharing Service” under Services, the “blackbox-keys.txt” didn’t seem to exist, even when I had hidden folders and drive components showing. Also, the instant I tried to open Ruckus, it asked me to update shit and there was no way to get around it. I give up. There’s got to be an easier way than dismantling my computer’s hard drive for 50 songs. Sorry.

09/06/07 | Veyster

Hi, your guide is wonderful. However when I try to go to http://services.wmdrm.windowsmedia.com/indivSite internet explorer encounters an error and closes. Would you happen to know why?

Thanks for your help!

09/10/07 | etano

So once again, this fix is not yet available for Vista. I updated the original post to note this.

John
It makes sense the WM told you there was no license. What you need to do is import then directly into iTunes immediately after you use FU4WM to strip the DRM encryption. iTunes is seeing the renewed license and denying it.

Veyster
I’m not sure why this isn’t working for you. You may try updating IE. You can also just go to the URL without the /indivSite in case the link has changed. If so, let me know.

09/10/07 | will

hey there-

thanks for the response! i’m a bit under with school but still enthralled with the aspect of ripping off ruckus. it appears that i can play the fwm songs in windows media if i renew the liscenses on each individual song. but i still get the warning in iTunes that i’m not allowwed to copy songs that aren’t mine.

will

09/10/07 | will

well, dang.

i read what you told john to do, by porting the files directly into the itunes folder, and IT WORKED!!!! for lack of a better phrase, my friend, I LOVE YOU!!!

09/13/07 | chris

hey,
I have followed all of the steps correctly, but i don’t see “Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service” when i run “services.msc”. I have gone back from steps 1-13 twice and it is still not showing up. please help!!

09/14/07 | Ryan

I’m having trouble with FairUse4WM. It says that I have no keys loaded. When I click recover keys and then start and it says provide interoperability for windows media files has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience. But I also had a bit of trouble finding where the hidden files are and also finding the “blackbox-keys.txt” file. So that could have something to do with it. So if you could help that would be great. thanks.

09/14/07 | peter

removing the microsoft user-mode driver frameworks feature pack thing won’t affect any of my other programs on my computer?

09/14/07 | Adam

When i go to the control pannel and then to ass/remove files, windows media player isnt listed…any thoughts?

09/17/07 | nate

hi, it seems that when i open FairUse4WM, it doesn’t load any keys….how do i get it to load the keys so they can be stripped?

09/17/07 | Ben

Can you do this with vista?

09/18/07 | Will

Does this work the same if i have windows vista?

09/18/07 | etano

Alright, so this is probably the last response that I’m going to give on the post. Pretty much all questions that could be asked have previously been answered, and if they haven’t, then they are beyond my knowledge. If you have such a question, my advice is to visit the Doom9 Forums (the official support for FairUse4WM) and ask there.

11/05/07 | The Life and Adventures of TuRfYMaN > Making a ruckus over Ruckus

[...] you have problems, you can check out this article. Contrary to what this article says, however, I have been able to remove the DRM from Ruckus tracks [...]

05/29/08 | etano

Ever since I closed commenting, people have been emailing about this more than ever. So, commenting is back open. However, I will most likely not be able to help people directly. Thus, help each other or go here: Doom 9 forums

05/30/08 | rebecca

I am having trouble with the step where you’re supposed to get a security upgrade from windows. It seems to be taking a long time and nothing is happening. If you could please comment on this.. thank you!

06/03/08 | Emily

I just have a question about rolling back windows media player. I currently have Windows Vista, and when I went to the updates section of the add/remove programs, the only updates that there were to uninstall were called “cumulative windows media player updates”… so i dont know how to exactly roll back this type of program with this operating system. I would greatly appreciate your help.

06/07/08 | Adam

So when I was going through the steps and got to the second number 3 that tells me to hit start, run, type services.msc I wasn’t able to find Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service. Thus i was unable to delete it and I don’t know how to do number 4 of that either.

06/09/08 | michael Brisbois

Hey i couldn’t figure this thing out i couldn’t find any hidden files to delete and as soon as i went to go upgrade internet explorer would crash i desperately need some help

06/12/08 | Brooke

Hey, i followed all the directions up to the point of going to download or renew a license in ruckus and when i went to open my ruckus a box popped up saying theres a problem and ruckus needs to close. theres the option of sending an error report but i dont think that will help. any idea where i went wrong?

06/13/08 | Veronica

I’ve followed this tutorial up until the point where I was supposed to type “services.msc” into the “Run” box. I cannot find the item I am supposed to disable. What should I do??

06/14/08 | Tara

Everything worked find and I followed all of the instructions and recovered 2 keys and I went to ruckus and renewed the license and then I went to the fairuse program and added the file I clicked next and it gives me the error message that says its not licensed to me? Do you know what happend?

06/16/08 | Taylor

I can’t rollback with Windows Vista :(

06/20/08 | Zach

It has been over a year since this tutorial was started. Will the original instructions for converting the files still work, or has Ruckus done something to prohibit the old conversion?

06/24/08 | Cody

First, Zach, I believe that Ruckus has updated to not allow DRMs to be stripped so easily.

Second, I followed the instructions and they worked great, but now that Ruckus has its mandatory update I can no longer strip them in Fairuse4WM. Any help??

06/24/08 | Chris

I have tried this tutorial probably about 10 times, and have never gotten FairUse4WM to work for stripping my DRM’s. Every time I try to use FairUse, it pops up a “Send Error” Report and closes down.Even downloaded the newest version (Fix 2). Help???

06/28/08 | Scott

I used to have this working great by falling the tutorial,but then I had to do a update for ruckus and when I tried to redo these steps it wouldnt work any more. Etano, Please find a way to make this work again!!

06/29/08 | Matt

This won’t work anymore for Ruckus files. Stopped working a number of months ago, unfortunately. Ruckus updated something so the IBX number on the music files is higher than what FairUse can convert.

That’s the problem I had a couple months ago and after trying several methods I gave up. So unless anyone has a FairUse update, I’m off to try purchasing a program like Tunebite or Soundtaxi. If anyone has any recommendations on those, that would be greatly appreciated.

07/07/08 | Mike A

Hi. I did what you said the first time and it worked perfectly. However, recently, Ruckus said that I needed to upgrade or else I could not play or download music. So I upgraded and now Fairuse wont convert the songs. I still have Windows Media 10. I need help bad.

07/11/08 | tobby

Hey Everyone,

I got this to work on a virtualized version of Windows XP (running from my Mac). I haven’t had any update problems and FairUse stripped the .wma’s perfectly. Although, instead of importing the files, I converted them first using a .wma to mp3 converter (iTunes doesn’t import .wma on Mac for some reason) and it works! If you have a question, come visit me on my website http://www.thedullbulb.blogspot.com.

07/17/08 | victoria

i am having the same problem as brooke. PLEASE help.

07/22/08 | jeremy

when i go to this step

Now go here, and click “upgrade” (This step must be done in Internet Explorer): click here

i click on the link, however am not able to click the upgrade button for some reason. I can see it, just cant click on it… also i made it possible to see hidden folders, however see nothing in the DRM folder… i double checked

07/22/08 | jeremy

please please help me

07/22/08 | Scott

I also had the same problem as you jeremy in trying that link, Ive just given up now

07/25/08 | Nick

Ive got everything going fine except that not all of my songs are in the ruckus folder theres only a few albums that come up.. how can i get them all there?

07/27/08 | Michael Simmerson

Is this not illegal? I would like to do this process, but being on a college campus it seems that they watch everything like hawks. I don’t want to be booted from college for simply putting my free music where I want. How safe is this process?

07/28/08 | allie

ok my problem is that i cant even find windows media player in my add/remove programs…i have it on my computer but i cant find it on that list of programs

07/29/08 | John

So my computer keeps restarting every two minutes or so after I tried to convert Ruckus to iTunes. Any advice on how to get it to work again? I was thinking about reinstalling Windows

07/29/08 | Grant

HOW TO MAKE THIS WORK WITH RUCKUS 3.61.xx

Alright, this can be made to work with the latest copies of Ruckus. It is a bit complicated though, but it works perfectly.

Here it goes…

First, uninstall Ruckus and roll Windows Media Player back to v10, as the instructions say. A complete rollback.

Then install the Ruckus player, and follow the second half of the instructions again (the whole updating WM files and updating the DRM files part).

The start Ruckus, shift-select your entire library, right-click and select “Renew License.”

This will take quite a while, so go do something entertaining.

Once it is done renewing your licenses, fire up the latest version of FairUse4WM. It should find all the license keys just fine, and convert the files without any problem now.

It worked for me.

WinXP SP2 with WMP 10.

07/30/08 | Christine

Help! I did all of the above steps, however when I opened up my ruckus it said that I needed to upgrade my DRM protection- how do I get around this?

07/30/08 | Christine

After I published my comment above, I tried fair use and this is what it stated- Extraction in progress on “Indiv01.key” 11.0.6000.6324 — Please wait.
Failed – Unable to locate encrypted code table.
Extraction in progress on “Indiv01.key” 11.0.6000.6324 — Please wait.
Failed – Unable to locate encrypted code table.

help!

07/31/08 | Dan

Is the process any different with windows vista because I’m having a hell of a hard time trying to figure this out. it worked on an old comp of mine but this new stuff is throwing me for a loop

08/01/08 | Megan

so I followed your steps and it was ok until I got to the run services.msc part, I couldn’t find the Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service. So I thought it was already disabled. I went to move on then was in my documents to see all the hidden DRM files and there were none. I’m lost! Help!!

08/04/08 | Alexandria

THANK YOU. THANK YOU, THANK YOU!! I have to admit I am NOT the most computer savvy person and this tutorial was soo helpful and direct (except for around the DRM/update part, but I fished around in the comments, so thanks again for those). But I am sincerely grateful I stumbled upon this. Major props :)

08/12/08 | Sam

hey etano,
i’m having some issues.
i got to the part where you use the fairuse4WM to strip the songs. i went into ruckus, upgraded the DRM b/c it said i had to and just picked 1 song and renewed the license. now i went into fairuse, clicked recover keys, now what do i do?
how do i select the songs i want to strip? all it says is click start to begin the extraction process? extraction of what? when i click start, i get this message:

Extraction in progress on “Indiv01.key” 11.0.6000.6324 — Please wait.
Failed – Unable to locate encrypted code table.

what am i doing wrong?

08/12/08 | Sam

i didn’t uninstall ruckus, i still have the current version

08/12/08 | tim

any way to do this on windows vista?

08/14/08 | Jon

ok, so I have got FairUse to work and am now having trouble importing these ’supposed DRM-free’ files to my itunes. I have also renewed my licenses on ruckus. I just am not sure how to import the ‘clean’ files. Please let me know where to go from here. Thank You!!

08/16/08 | Martin

Jon:

Make sure you’re trying to import the [NoDRM] files that FairUse creates. I kept trying to drag the same folder into iTunes that I dragged into FairUse. Obviously, it said they were still DRM-protected. Once I found the [NoDRM] files that FairUse made (in my My Videos folder for some reason) iTunes converted the wmas to apple lossless and I had no problem. I found this just in time for me to keep my music before I have to trade in my Dell for a Macbook.

Thanks Etano.

08/16/08 | Jon

Martin and Etano, THANK YOU! i got it to work, the only problem im encountering is that when I go to import the files into my itunes, I can only import 1 song at a time. Is there any way to import multiple songs at once?? Please let me know…

08/16/08 | Laura

Hey, I was just wondering, all these alterations wont affect my laptop right? i can sync music from ruckus/WMP without any problems right? cause i just got my computer from the repair shop and i’m moving and i’d hate to pay $800 again ;) So if there are any consequences that might harm my 2-going-on 3 years old laptop, please let me know.

08/19/08 | Justin

Is This for windows vista?

08/23/08 | Hacker

Hm..i think your trick is not work again.

08/23/08 | Callyn

I followed these steps previously when I originally had WMP 10 and everything worked great and then I had to send my computer to be serviced and they updated everything and now fairuse isn’t working right. I have done all the steps to roll back and I have gotten everything to work correctly up to downloading the zipfile “program files” but when I click on the link to upgrade it tells me that internet explorer has experienced an error and has to close everytime. I have even tried redownloading WMP 11 and starting all over. HELP!! I am lost without fairuse…

08/23/08 | Callyn

and now when I try to open Ruckus everytime it says that it has an error and has to close too….ahhh what happened

08/25/08 | sommer

Is there any way to do this for Windows Vista??

08/27/08 | Jon

So I followed the first 13 steps with no problems. Then the first couple from the second phase. When I searched for the Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service in services it was not present. My folders are set-up to show hidden files. I skipped the step to see if I could see the folder DRM in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\DRM\… I see folders for a variety of things but not DRM. Am I supposed to delete every folder from that all users section. In addition the website to get the update, doesn’t work. As I attempt to open it it says windows has detected a problem and has to shut down. Could you please respond to my email. Thanks

08/28/08 | Nick

I Extracted all the files from the “programfiles.zip”. Then when i go to start, run, and type in “services.msc” but when i looked for the “Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service”, it isnt there. what should i do??

08/29/08 | sharon

these steps don’t work for vista? thanks for not mentioning that at the top.

08/30/08 | Scott

i dont think ruckus even says they work with vista lol

08/31/08 | Scott

omg yes!!!!!!!!!!! i got it working again!!! lol i figured out how to solve some problems,before on the step where u have to get that updgrade on internet explorer the button would be grayed out or internet explorer would have to restart once it was clicked. I realized that even tho i had rolled back wmp 11 wmp had not been installed completely yet, so i once i did that the button worked fine.

Also it still did not work after this. I could not find any blackbox in mydocuments, but then i did a search for “blackbox” and found them and deleted them. Once i did this and reopend fairuse it allowed me to recover the keys and now its working properly again.

09/06/08 | Katie

i have wmp 10 and i have always used the fairuse link from this site and it has always worked great, but now i add my files to be converted and click next and none of the songs work. it says it requires a different private key. how do i fix that???

09/10/08 | Scott

i think that was the same problem i was having b4 too, try using the search box and type blackbox, and delete what you find, before I did that I couldnt make fairuse work either

09/21/08 | Joey

I’m sorry but these directions suck. If you delete every update of Windows Media including the ones in the Security Update numerous programs won’t open. Being the great program system update is it doesn’t fix this issue. Now I’m backing up my hard drive to reformat my C: Thanks but no thanks.

09/28/08 | Janet

I Extracted all the files from the “programfiles.zip”. Then when i go to start, run, and type in “services.msc” but when i looked for the “Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service”, it isnt there.

11/13/08 | John

2 problems

1 is the same as Janet…i dont have a Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service in services.msc

also,
I don’t have a folder entitled C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\DRM

and I know I am showing hidden files bc i can see the hidden folders in that folder!

11/22/08 | SiriusSC2GT

I have done everything I believe, but when I click recover keys in FairUse4WM, it tells me this:
Extraction in progress on “Indiv02.key” 11.0.6000.6324 — Please wait.
Failed – Unable to locate encrypted code table.
What is going wrong?

11/24/08 | jaime

where is the software update removal wizard?

12/07/08 | Eric

Hey, first off I want to say thanks for this.

Anyway, I was going through the steps and I encountered something that made me skeptical. On step 10, I was going to remove the Microsoft User-Mode Driver Framework Feature Pack 1.0, and I get a message that some programs won’t run properly if I remove it.

I checked, and basically everything I use will be affected. iTunes, AIM, Firefox, Adobe, etc. Should I be worried?

12/10/08 | Daniel

Hi Mr. Brown,

On the upgrade step my IE is crashing… I can view the page fine with firefox (my default browser) but I can not click the upgrade button. When using IE it crashes my browser before I can even view the page. What should I do? I believe I have the most up-to-date version of IE

12/23/08 | scott

hey daniel, look at one of my older comments i had the same problem with that internet explore thing. Once you uninstall or rollback your windows media player, you have to click on it one more time so it can complete the install, then the link should work.

12/23/08 | scott

hmmmm bad news… I do not think this process will work anymore if you have updated to service pack 3. Windows media player 10 seems incapable of installing with service pack 3. So the rest of this process cannot work. If you could somehow get back to serice pack 2 this process would work, I have done it several times before.

12/24/08 | nick

I’m running Windows XP service pack 3 and removing DRM works for me. Of course, I did this process when my computer still had service pack 2. I guess the point is that service pack 3 does not undo anything

01/10/09 | scott

ah, yea i undid the process once i was in service pack 2, I updated to service pack 3 and then it wouldnt let me install windows media player 10. I have heard it works the same with internet explorer. If you saved the older version you are fine, but if u delete it you cannot go back to it on service pack 3.

01/12/09 | Ryan

hey Ive used your product before but recently had my computer reformated. After that i had microsoft media player 11 installed (originally had 10). After reformate fairshare cannot recover any keys this message appears when i try to recover (Extraction in progress on “Indiv01.key” 11.0.6000.6324 — Please wait.
Failed – Unable to locate encrypted code table.) then i hit ok and this pops up (Attempting to recover DRMv1 keys FairUse4WM will use a WM-Installed DLL to determine system specific information. “DrmClien.DLL” has version 10.0.0.3802) then i hit ok and nothing happens. I made sure when i unistalled windowsmedia 11 that i got rid of everything attached to it. Ive reinstalled windowsmedia player 10. ive done the steps up top but cant figure out how to 1.
Extract all the contents in the included “programfiles.zip” file into your program files directory (Overwite any existing files)
and 2. Then click start, run, type “services.msc” and look for “Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service” and double click on it, and DISABLE it.
Please help! I really enjoyed using this product and cant find another that works. Thanks for the help.

01/27/09 | Bob

I just clicked upgrade DRM on my Ruckus player because I was forced to (it would not let me play songs on Ruckus or crack the DRM using FairUse4WM – like I have done over the last year). Now I cannot strip the DRM on my Ruckus downloads! Please help! I really loved FairUse4WM! It saved me a ton of time.

Have something to say? Feel free to comment.

respond