Technical computer/OS question about shareware time limits

Factual Questions
1

I have downloaded an old 30-day shareware program in the past. I was able to successfully run the program by unzipping the archive into a folder on the desktop, and then running the game from the folder. Meaning, there was no formal installation - I just ran the executable.

I used the game for 30 days and on the 30th day, the software tells me “30 days is up, register”

Ok. I get it so far.

I delete that file folder and then, let’s say, a year later, I do the same thing again. Except this time I unzip into a different folder. However, the computer software knows that my 30-day trial has expired.

I have searched the registry for any instance of the game/game name/executable name. Nothing.

So where does the information reside that I have used up my 30 day trial period?

Was this why in Vista and 7, Microsoft now asks for your permission to edit system files rather than let software change things willy nilly?

(this is win XP)

2

Well, not this in specific, but this kind of thing, yes: User programs really shouldn’t be able to hide themselves like this. It’s too much privilege for barely-trusted code.

As for how it works: My first inclination would be to imagine the program installed a file well-hidden enough you can’t find it. In Windows, this includes really non-obvious registry keys. I don’t know all the ways you could do that on Windows and I don’t know how skillfully you know how to look. You might want to look up ways you can hide things from Explorer in XP and whether using the command line would be able to root the things out. If that fails, grab a Linux LiveCD and use that; all the modern ones can handle NTFS (XP’s native filesystem) perfectly well at this point, but it would probably be stymied by the registry.

3

There are a lot of different ways to do this.

Here’s a good article on it showing just how many ways you can implement a 30 day trial period

4

There used to be a free or shareware program (several as I recall) that would scan your system directories and registry and keep a log. Then you would install the software, run it again and get a comparison report that itemized all of the changes.

Not everything was related to the install since there are still other processes going on in the back ground, but it gave you a place to start if a piece of software was not well behaved.

5

Actually, to answer my own implied question, here’s a tiny Linux distro that comes with software that can handle the Windows registry for every NT-based Windows version since NT (4.0?) and 2000, including XP up through 7. It comes in the form of a bootable disk image, which you’d typically blast onto a thumb drive, or a CD-R if your machine can’t boot from a USB device, or a floppy if your machine is living in 1996 and worried about whether it has enough power to play Quake.

6

Hidden reg entries are a big one. Of course, searching the registry is something a lot of people would try, so you don’t clearly label it. Chances are, if you poke around in the registry, you’ll see a lot of mysterious entries. Heck, modern trial software probably doesn’t limit itself to a single entry for expiring trials; why do one when you can have a backup, and detect if it’s been meddled with? Activation technology tends to be pretty deeply embedded in software and will look to a lot of areas to confirm itself. If one file is tampered with or missing, it may be able to regenerate it as it should be, or just lock itself down entirely.

7

Yeah, it’s almost certainly a registry key with an odd name. There are parts of the registry that can be written to even without Admin permissions.

If only there were some program out there that would sandbox everything the program did, so you could keep track of all the changes and remove them…

8

You could have just posted the Sandboxie website, instead of just hinting… :wink:

I use this, too. Highly recommended.

9

[moderating]
We don’t allow threads here on how to violate copyrights and legal restrictions. If you like the product after 30 days, buy it. If you want to hack it, figure it out elsewhere.
Thread closed.
[/moderating]