Time Stopper Software: Best to Extend or Reset Trial Period
3. Time Stopper
Time Stopper is a program that behaves in a similar way to RunAsDate and fools the expired application into thinking it’s still within the trial period. This tool does differ slightly though because you don’t have the option to directly run the expired program from Time Stopper, but instead it is designed specifically to run from a desktop shortcut with the new time and date injected when you run the program from the shortcut.
Simply run Time Stopper and locate the trial software executable with the Browse button. Choose the new time and date from the pop-out calender, and then give the shortcut icon a name and finish by clicking the create button. Like Nirsoft RunAsDate, this tool will work on some shareware programs and not others but is easy enough to try.
4. Using a Software Installation Monitor
This method may not seem that obvious at first, but actually can work quite well in many circumstances. The theory is simple in that you use a standard piece of installation monitor software which watches the files and registry entries that a program creates when it installs, and then can completely uninstall the software including everything that doesn’t get removed by the standard uninstaller. This often has the effect of also removing registry entries shareware might leave behind to watch its trial expiry status.
As an example, this can be achieved for the Internet Download Manager shareware program when its 30 day trial expires. We happen to know that the trial status of IDM is stored in the registry key “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{07999AC3-058B-40BF-984F-69EB1E554CA7}”, but IDM doesn’t remove this key when you uninstall through its own uninstaller and the time/date trick doesn’t work. Therefore once the trial period expires, the information remains on your computer and it will stay expired even if you re-install the program again in future.
To demonstrate, we installed Comodo Programs Manager which is one of the better installation monitor’s around, and let it automatically monitor the install of IDM. Then once the trial period for IDM has expired, we simply select it for a “Complete Uninstall” in Comodo Programs Manager. After the standard uninstaller has finished, Programs Manager will show the extra files and registry entries that have been left behind. Expand the Registry tree and looking at the keys, we can see the IDM key which controls the trial period status is listed for removal. Continue the removal and if you re-install Internet Download Manager, its trial status will be reset to 30 days.
This method is obviously not foolproof but if you can install the trial software for the first time after installing the installation monitor, and the trial information is kept in the registry or a data file, one of these programs has a chance of picking it up and removing it which will reset the trial period.
5. Registry Trash Keys Finder
This might be a better solution these days because it is up-to-date. Unlike the Trial-Reset program which was last updated more than 2 years ago, it may not work on shareware that uses a newer version protector. Although Registry Trash Keys Finder is free, there are some limitations where some of the protection keys are not shown. The full version of Registry Trash Keys Finder is only available after donating to the author of this tool and it removes the limit.
As you can see at the screenshot above, there are 3 registry keys that shows {FREEWARE-VERSION-CAN’T-SHOW-THIS-KEY} for the Armadillo protector which cannot be seen nor deleted. We wanted to test the full version so badly that we donated to get it. From the “what’s new” area, we read that they’ve recently added a search routine for the latest Alawar.com games keys so we decided to put Alawar games to the test.
We downloaded a game from Alawar called Sticky Linky and played the whole free 60 minutes. Once the 60 minutes free play time is up, it shows 0 minutes game time left and we can no longer play the game until we purchase the game.
We ran Registry Trash Keys Finder full version and Alawar came up in the search results.
The Alawar key is deleted and running Sticky Linky now gives us another 60 minutes of free game time!
The Registry Trash Keys Finder full version has successfully extended the trial period of a game and it should also work for other software too. Other than just resetting the trial period, it also acts as a registry cleaner/optimizer where it detects obsolete registry keys of uninstall/app paths/SharedDLLs/Installer/MUICache/Help, unused file extensions, empty CLSID and TypeLib key, invalid name of CLSID and many more.
my typing master is not working and showing demo version expired. plz give me solution.
At one stage, Lotus 1-2-3 (spreadsheet) should be “unlocked” by carefully HEX editing where the serial number would normally go, with a random number LOL.
I see these are the “least intrusive” ways to do it. I was watching things on YouTube earlier and saw a bunch of people messing with reverse engineering and debugging with OllyDbg, for example. But that’s quite complicated stuff.
People can waste months in that thing ending up in nothing. And the example you said that the info is stored on the servers, like MAC address, current IP and other hardware ID stuff that might lead you to a dead-end trying to crack software which you actually will have a lot of work and in a few updates your cracking method is gone (if published widely).
I’m trying to extend an specific software and this article was pretty useful, actually. Thanks for sharing. I’ll try the last method that interested me. I’m a bit broke right now, but I’ll see if I can get the donation version, so it can come in handy for some situations, where I can’t find specifically cracked software.
Hi, Did you find any solution. I’ve used runasdate before but for a specific software its not working. What runasdate does it adds configs to launch as previous date (Which it writes on shortcut). But now when try to open the shortcut the application wont launch. Any help?
Does this application – Trial Reset – remove the hidden files of Articulate Storyline? Can it detect and remove the keys etc and allow reinstallation of trial software?
Does any of this work with the modern Adobe software? such as photoshop and lightroom?
which one can be use to extend trial period of treeage?
which one works for trial anti-virus program like avg/kaspersky/bitdefender?
A slim possibility #4 might do something but software that connects to the internet as much as antivirus does will likely store data about your trial online, which you can’t change because it’s held elsewhere.
Where are other three ways?
Try page 2…
There is zero reason to ever download, trial, or worse pay for winzip. 7-zip does more, is equally (more?) usable, and is free and open source, with regular releases for Windows.
Just because you prefer one bit of software over another, doesn’t mean you should be instructing others not to use it. Winzip has a different feature set to 7-Zip and they are certainly not equal. If others want to pay for or use Winzip, they are perfectly entitled to do so.
You should be happy there’s so much choice out there and people have options to choose what’s best for them.
For me it’s just a matter of which looks nicer, i don’t need any of the extra things 7-zip does.
thank you sir raymond.
Thank a billion! It perfectly works for most of my trial software.
God bless Devs from RunAsDate and also Mr. Raymon for giving us info about this amazing software.
The first option worked for me. Thank you so much :)
Please does this work on AutoCAD 2012. I just have 15days remaining.
Any body know how to reset trail date key
I look at the ResEdit only show date I try to download again yesterday
I want to know where is date it compair so I can change that date
Have to be 30 day Less than current date
I greatly appreciated if some can tell me where in registry I can change
LIte Matt I can’t find the password – have downloaded the zip file but EVERYTHING needs a password? Any help would be great thank you
The password is clearly stated on the download page…
can someone tell me if this works for holdemresources? it does not work for me
Found a better way to extend trial:
Close Quickbooks
Delete all the files in this folder: C:\ProgramData\Intuit\Entitlement Client\v8
Then enter Quickbooks.
Interesting that for example Sketchup Pro trial doesn’t need to be reset. Just switch off internet and change date to future like year 2050 and then install Sketchup. Do not run yet. Change date back to today and then delete %appdata%\Sketchup and %localappdata%\Sketchup and %programdata%\sketchup. Then run it and it will have trial that doesn’t expire until year 2050.
Any suggestions for Toon Boom Harmony
I suggest to run any exe described here with sandboxie to isolate the damage and later delete the files from sandboxie. You also might like to use Oracle VM and mess as much as you like.
RunAsDate works perfect for any version of LabVIEW.
Thank you very much! It helped a lot.
Does anyone know if RunAsDate works with QuickBooks. I’m in month 3 of a 6-month trial that came with a textbook for a class I’m taking. I still have time, but it would be so nice to be able to hang on to the software when the class is over.
VIRUS FOUND:
Trojan:Win32/Tulim.C!plock Alert Level: Severe
Category: Trojan
Description: This program is dangerous and executes commands from an attacker.
Recommended action: Remove this software immediately.
Items:
file:C:\Users\USER\Downloads\Trial-Reset40Final\Trial-Reset40Final\Plugins\Reflexive.dll
That is obviously a false positive and the file isn’t malicious, it happens a lot I’m afraid.
Like I say to everyone, if you are not comfortable, don’t use the program.
Does any of this work for IDM? if so, which one works the best
We’re not sure as we don’t use IDM, your only real option is to try things out and see…
I’d suggest trying Free Download Manager instead of trying to extend IDM. I used IDM initially but FDM is just as good if not better and, as the name suggests, free.
Rather than extending it, why don’t you unlock it manually right away? There are lots of tricks available online!
After extracting and trying to run the application on windows for trial rest 4.0, it comes with an error.
Hi – thank you so much for this blog. It has helped me a great deal!!
It absolutely does work !
Thanks for this much-awaited post. It is a boon for those who can not afford very high price of the software!
the Trial-reste40final.zip needs a password to open. What is it?
The password is listed on the page you downloaded the Trial-reste40final.zip from.
Glad you found it…