I brought Sage 2 payroll training kit on Ebay brand new in the box, installed it onto my laptop and everything was fine. Really good course and everything. The problem is that my laptop had to go in to be repaired and when it came back and I went to use the software it said it had expired. I know it hadn't cos I had only installed it about two weeks or so before the repair.
Have rang sage but they wont help as I didnt buy it from them. Ive tried uninstalling and reloading but no joy.
Can any one help?? I now it was only £50 but it still alot of money to waste.
Hi, sorry Michelle I am not technically minded so can't really help. You have done everything I would have done. Have you got another machine you could try to install it on?
the problem is that the windows registry will have been updated with the first instalation of the software. If you try to reinstall it will look there first and then tell you that your not allowed to install the software again.
I'm adverse to telling anyone how to edit the registry as one mistake and you could end up having to reinstall windows!
What was repaired or replaced when it went to the fixers?
Not sure of the security on the version that you have but some software (I'm thinking of the BPP I-Learn software here) records the id of the CPU and Disk drive. If you change either then the software stops working.
Do you have another machine available to you? If so, try installing the software on the new machine to restart your trial.
If that doesn't work then you will need to uninstall the software and clean the registry before putting the software back on the machine again.
I edit the registry directly and haven't used a cleaner myself. Anyone got any advice for a good registry cleaner?
Sorry that I can't be more help at the moment.
Shaun.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
The repairs were done to the power socket, it had to be replaced and I think he said he had to do some soldering to the mother board as it was a bit loose. When I switched it on everything had gone back to factory setting and thinking about it now, Im sure the date was quite alot out.
When the motherboard was soldered (likely required to attach the new power supply) the technician will have removed the backup CMOS battery to prevent damage to a live board.
Removing the battery resets everything back to factory settings so very likely the date reverted to the date the motherboard was manufactured as even without backup power the manufacturing dates are retained in the chips.
When restarted the date sensitive software is likely to have flicked switches setting itself into an off state so that it cannot be manipulated by people resetting the system date (the way everyone used to get around date restricted software in the good old days).
The only way past that would be to get rid of the entries from the windows registry... And they could be very well hidden with no mention of Sage on them anywhere. Or to try installing the software on a fresh machine.
Sorry I can't be more help on this.
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Regarding Shaun's mention of a registry cleaner, I use CCleaner which is very small and efficient.
If everything else has failed, I would try uninstalling the Sage trial then running CCleaner: select Registry, Scan for issues and Fix selected issues. It should remove any registry entries that pertain to programs not currently installed.
I can't guarantee it will work but if it doesn't you'll at least tidy up your machine with CCleaner.
A sure fire way of solving the problem would be to to uninstall Sage and reinstall Windows but that might not be to your taste.
I have one more solution which IS simple and WILL work. Email me:
precisely@hotmail.co.uk
Sage are being pretty unhelpful, aren't they? I guess they don't care whether they have your future business.
I'm not entirely sure that Sage can just wash their hands of this since they rely on re-sellers. Of course if you said you'd bought second hand from Ebay they will probably give you short shrift but maybe another call with a similar explanation but when asked where you bought it from perhaps say it was an on-line reseller. They may of course point you back in their direction or they may give you a new activation code.
