hi all,

my question is regarding trial programs, for instance when you download a program and they give you 15 days to try it for free. how do these trials work, do they install something on your computer that tells the software how long to allow it. if so, is there anyway to reset this counter. my friends computer had alot of previous users and it appears some of these trials in the past. he went to try a program out and it said he already used up his 15 days.

thankx for any advice regarding this

Yes, something is placed on your computer that acts as a counter.

From my experience the only way to use a trial program again, is to reinstall windows.
If it was easier than this everybody would find out how, and spend there lives using trial programs, and resetting it each time.

I will probably get proved wrong now though.

Scrub your registry and install again.

I think this should be ignored!

Don't post things like that, there are people out there who would try it.

Scrubbing the registry won't work if you don't know where it stored the trial over entry, neither will any registry cleaner. There's usually always a free, or open source alternative that works on par or better than a trial/commercial version.

TryTotaluninstall
http://www.martau.com/
the free version is ok. Click options>unistaller>untick "decrease shared dlls counter". Install your program through Totaluninstall.when it comes to remove it. uninstall it the normal way ( through "add/remove") then through totaluninstall

I think you read me wrong, I mean use a registry cleaner like Registry Mechanic etc.

Use Google to find it's locations.

Sorry, LEEnoble, I did read you wrong.

thankx for the advice guys, i might try some of these, i'll post back if any of the suggestions work out, if not i'll just format his computer and go from there.