Bringing shareware back from the dead

You install a shareware program you want to try, but you don’t get around to it until after it expires. So you have to download it all over again, right?

Wrong. If you still have the installation file, you can just reinstall it.

Oops, this doesn't seem to work — the program is still timing out. Now you’ve got to go back to the Web to download it again, right?

Wrong again. The shareware programmer has made the program create a small file on your system to record the first installation date. You'll find it somewhere on your computer with an ".ini" extension. Don’t confuse it with other .ini files your computer needs to operate properly. If you can’t tell from the file name, you can open the file with a text editor and see if the contents give you a clue — just be sure to close it without resaving.

If you find the proper .ini file, you can just delete it and reinstall the shareware program.

If the .ini file is not to be found, the clever programmer may have hidden the initial installation date in Window’s Registry. If you know your way around the Registry you can delete this entry in there. (See www.WE-Compute.com/registry.html for an intro to Registry editing.)