Extend or Reset Trial Period of Trial Demo Software

A lot of software and applications are released as a shareware, also known as demoware (demo) or trialware (trial version), where users can download the trial version shareware from the Internet or get the apps from distributed magazine cover-disks, and use it for a stipulated period of time (trial period), free or charge without any payment. The plan is sort of “try before you buy”, where if users satisfy with the software after trying it, they should buy the program by paying a license fee to the developer. After passing the trial expiry date and time (expiry of trial period), the software will either stop working, or continue working with limited or restricted features, or displays a reminder message about expired trial demo license.

So what if you want to extend the duration of the trial period of the demo apps to fully evaluate it? Or you have installed the demo software or shareware, but suddenly busy with works or something else, and when finally free, the trial valid date has passed? Or you may be decided that the shareware is not worth to pay? The solution or workaround is to extend or reset the trial apps expiry date and time, or its trial period, so that users can continue to using the trial shareware without crack or hack.

How to extend or reset the trial period of shareware, trial-ware, demo-ware or trial software?

Method 1

Reinstall the program. This is the easiest method, but highly likely that it won’t work mostly on current modern software, as the expiry check algorithm getting sophisticated by keeping the expiry information on started using date and days allowed for try use plus days left in the trial in the registry or in a randomly named file.

Method 2

Adjusting the clock (date and time) of your computer system before starting installation of trial software to future data, or adjusting the clock to past date after expired trial period. Again, this method most likely won’t work.

Method 3

Use a application installation monitoring software or uninstaller software such as Norton Cleansweep, Your Uninstaller! 2006 and Advanced Uninstaller PRO 2006 to keep track and monitor every changes to the system during installation, and then uninstall and revert the shareware completely to remove all traces of trial expiry data.

Method 4

Backup the registry before installation of software, and restore the registry after trial period passed. Only works on those shareware that store protection information in registry, and you will lose some important registry changes by Windows or other applications. Alternatively, use Regmon to monitor registry activity in real-time to identify possible candidates for trial expiry reg keys, and then delete those keys.

Method 5

Reinstall windows, and you can be sure that you can use all trial demo shareware again, as all dummy registry entries and dummy files that store trial information are wiped off.

Method 6

Find a crack, with the help of cracks search engine such as Astalavista. But this is not extending the trial period of software.

Method 7

Search with various search engines such as Google and Yahoo! for application-specific known workarounds.

Method 8

If you use any of the following software, then Trial-Reset can helps you to extend the trial period of the software. Trial-Reset is an registry cleaning tool (it claims it’s not a crack) that removes the keys generated by commercial and freeware protector of trial period, and hence makes the software as if just freshly installed. It actually automates the process of cleaning up the registry key related to trial expiry mentioned above. The software and its protected that Trial-Reset (version 3.0 RC3) supports and able to strips are as below.

ACProtect
ActiveMark
Armadillo
ASProtect
DBPE
EncryptPE
Enigma
ExeCryptor
ExeShield
ICE License
NoCopy
Obsidium
OneWay
Orien
PCGuard
ProtectionPlus
ProtectShareware
SafeSerial
SDProtector
Sheriff
SGLicense
ShareGuard
SoftLocx
SoftSentry
SoftWrap
STProtector
SVKP
Thinstall
VBOLock
VBox
VisualProtect
Xheo Licensing
XProtector
ZipWorx

To use Trial-Reset, just select which software protector that you want to scan for existance on the right hand side of the window. If the registry of the protector is found, make sure you you review the key to ensure that it’s the correct key that stores trial information. Then you can opt to backup the key, remove the key, add the key to protect list and other options.

Download Trial-Reset 3.0 RC3 (Trial-Reset30RC2.rar | Warning: Some users reported that the file is infected with virus. Use at your own risk). It has been upgraded to new version. Future update can be found here.