interesting Q about trial programmes

[Popa Bear]

knowing that some 30 day trials are run from the registry of your computer and the system date. IS it possible to put forward the date on your system when you download the programme and install it, then only to put the system date back to the original then the date so programme exspires will be say 30 days from the date the programme was installed? so in theory you would get any amount of trial time you want?

Just an interesting theory any1 want to enlighten..

[scotty6435]

I think most of the time-based trials log the date when it's installed and if it changes all of a sudden, it locks you out. I tried it way back with a paintshop pro 5 trial and it didn't work for the same reason.

[Popa Bear]

only raised the point because i had to reset the cmos on my pc due to a overclock.... yes i am hardcore and my trial antivirus software expired.

[eldren]

It depends on how the trial protection is implemented. I once ran a program that, for some inexplicable reason, claimed the trial had expired right after I installed it for the first time (And yes, I'd never used it before. ). Set the clock back a few months, and it worked fine. Other protection systems are designed to protect against that kind of trickery, and would find a way to block you. For example, they may log the last date that they were run, so if you suddenly run it at a date before the newest logged date, red flags go up.

[tommylittleboy@]

It is sometimes possible to find the entries within the registry, and you can change the values to give you longer trials, but this usually doesnt work. I have found on some apps, if you uninstall then reinstall, the trial is still expired, but maybe if you are able to erase every single registry entry relating to that app, it may think its never been installed before, and you've got your trial time back . What I'd suggest is finding a program which monitors changes to your registry when installing programs, then go and manually delete each one when the trials expire and try reinstalling.