Page 1 of how does a pc know........

how does a pc know how the demo versions of a game are finished and when you uninstall it and re-install it still knows you have had your demo.

I would love to know how to get round this if it is at all possible, there must be a way of deleting the memory of all traces of the program without formatting your hard drive.

Does anyone know this conundrum out there?.

I have played Lemonade stand from yahoo games and was addicted to it but you only get an hour to play , which isnt long enough. I want to play it more (and i am too tight to pay for the whole game) and i dont really care if it hasnt got all the features.

Can anyone help?.

Dunno...Most likely leaves some hidden file somewhere or a registry entry. Never been bothered to investigate before. Guess you could find out by installing it on a clean machine and sysdiff it.

even if you uninstall the program completely, it leaves a small file in the HKEY`s. Remember, the program itself governs what is uninstalled. it`s easy to write a program that writes 1000 files, but only deletes 999. One way to get around it is to completely re-install you`re system, but that`s a bit drastic.

There is a way to got around it, but it`s a bit dodgy, and I wouldn`t be suprised if this bit gets deleted, but you can find a lot of `free` games on P2P. Or games that have been registered and have a readme file with the registration key in the main folder. Although I do not condone this action and wholeheartedly decry using it for this purpose...

(gets back to playing his downloaded version of `Oddworld` again)

You could also try reg cleaner ( free ) which sometimes allows you to reinstall and re use programs after the trial has ended as it cleans out the hidden keys .

http://www.vtoy.fi/jv16/shtml/software.shtml

Not checked it out yet but there looks like a better program there that also includes reg cleaner - power tools.

Wayne.

That`s illegal but there is a site that is full of `patches` that takes off tiem limits to games and programs. Think of an Arnold Schwarzenegger famous saying - that isn`t English and put a www. before it and a .com after it :)

Most games will leave a folder with saved games and settings in that needs to be manually removed.

" That`s illegal "

Reg cleaner is not illegal but it is the users responsibilty on how they use it.

Astalavista baby

Wayne.