After using most shareware for a certain time or after a certain number of uses you're no longer able to access the program. Even after uninstalling the software and reloading it, the same prohibitions are still in place. Obviously the shareware software has placed something somewhere on your computer that causes this to happen. Anybody know where and what this might be?

The short answer is that it varies. One of the more common protections places a new key in your registry that has the original installation or expiration date, although you also may want to check if the program was completely uninstalled as occasionally a file will be left in the original directory.

This is how certain shareware 'cracks' operate; they place a modified registry key that tells the program it is either registered, or has an expiration date far in the future.


Search for a registry key from the same date you installed the program, and after verifying it is from that program, try deleting it and reinstalling the program.