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TRIAL PERIOD

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by galehickey2 2 views

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I installed an AUTOCAD program 2 yrs ago and had no problems. Bought a used pc and installed pgm on it. Hit the shortcut on my desktop and a message came up "sorry trial period has expired." This sounds like a reference is being made to a demo ofsome kind. Have no idea what was on this pc before I purchased it. Uninstalled the program and went to win.ini file and deleted the one instance of ACAD and reinstalled AUTOCAD. Tried to bring it up again and received the same message. Any help?

7 replies

by thechas

If someone had a trial version of Autocad on the machine, there are probably keys in the registry that are set to prevent a re-install to bypass the trial period.
I can't tell you where to look in the registry since I don't have the program myself.

If you choose to search the registry, do so with caution, as it is very easy to edit or remove the wrong key and disable Windows.

by timthetoolman

Hi,

The simplest and quickest solution will be to reformat and re-install windows on the PC.

As you say, who knows whats been on the PC before? The only way to be sure is to build it afresh. You may overcome this problem only to find you have other problems in the future that you cant overcome.

I never trust PCs that came from an unknown source and the first thing I do it re-install.

Of course, if you dont have the original Win98 (or whatever) disks then this wont be an option for you.

Cheers,
Tim.

by shanghai sam

The Down Side

When you buy/aquire a second hand PC from an unknown/sometimes known source, the Software and Opperating systems registration is not trancered with it.

You get a period like a try before you buy with out the warnings
If you likeit that much then you'll part with some cash after all when you have bought the software/ OS you are intitled to support and update or patches and sometimes help lines. If the Installation disk is faulty it can be replaced

The best course of action any way is to reformat and start again.

You DO have a registerd copy of windows and AUTOCAD, DONT YOU?

If not may it time to get some...

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