Company is gone, and didn't do the right thing and post a universal activation code before he quit the business.I'm getting a new computer and would love to find a way to crack the program to get it to run on the new computer. I thought about doing a before and after save of the registry to see what might have changed looking for a flag that I could compare to my old computer... but not sure how successful that may be.Any other ideas? People have tried to contact the programmer without success.

I've had that happen a couple of times with different programs. Depending on what the program is, sometimes in the "Help" menu the license is shown. If it's not you can search for a crack but those don't work very often. You can always clone the old machine and put it on your new machine. Just make sure you have enough hard drive space on the new computer to accommodation the old computers hard drive. I wouldn't advise this option unless you know what you're doing though.

There are a number of pay products that find product keys. Google 'product key finder windows 10' or just 'product key finder'.

How did you activate it to begin with? You no longer have that code? Depending on the programmer, how old the software is, etc., it's very possible the license is encrypted. So even if you can find it, it may not be a simple copy and paste. Is there nothing else on the market that does something similar?

Campfire Time wrote:How did you activate it to begin with? You no longer have that code? Depending on the programmer, how old the software is, etc., it's very possible the license is encrypted. So even if you can find it, it may not be a simple copy and paste. Is there nothing else on the market that does something similar?It was activated with a remote server using my license number, so that's why I'm guessing something in the registry.It can be replaced with a different piece of software, but I've put a lot of time into this program's database and it serves my needs perfectly.

Back in the early days of PCs, I was a member of a Commodore User Group. Any problems like this were handed to a 14 year old who stuck the disk in the computer and read it at the machine code level. He's spot where registration required and patch the code around it so that the install wouldn't stop to ask for those details. Problem solved. All you need is a 14 year old nerd that knows how to code.

Program requiring activation on a new computer | Good Sam Community

2012Coleman
Explorer II
Sep 06, 2019
Maybe try removing the old computer hard drive and either install it in the new computer case or get one of those cases and use it as an external hard drive connected via USB. The drive won't be called C anymore, but you can still run programs that reside on it - just find the program and create a desktop shortcut. If you don't know where it is, right click the current shortcut and select properties.
TheBearAK
Explorer
Sep 05, 2019
Is it a database program? Can we get the name of it? Some use a file in your user directory (hidden) to store the encrypted license.

Some of these mid-90's programs could be fooled into checking locally for verification.

Did you try google: " key verification hack"
AsheGuy
Explorer
Aug 29, 2019
philh wrote:
I have the license key, but their remote server did some sort of verification and activation of the key.

I'd say your chances of finding a way around that are not good, unfortunately. Do you have a 13-year old hacker type neighbor? :)

The suggestion of an alternative program might have to be your path.

As someone suggested, porting your existing disk image to your new computer might work, but it would involve quite a bit of work:
Save an image of your new computer's hard drive
Create an image of your old computer's hard drive and put it on your new computer
Do any operating system and hardware driver updates that might be needed, Windows seems to be getting better at doing the latter.
If this does not work, put your new computer's disk image back on it.
philh
Explorer II
Aug 29, 2019
I have the license key, but their remote server did some sort of verification and activation of the key.
AsheGuy
Explorer
Aug 28, 2019
AllegroD wrote:
There are a number of pay products that find product keys. Google 'product key finder windows 10' or just 'product key finder'.
I always install Belarc Advisor on my Windows systems, it creates a list of much useful information about your system, application keys are way down the list toward the bottom. A snippet follows:
DFord
Explorer
Aug 28, 2019
Back in the early days of PCs, I was a member of a Commodore User Group. Any problems like this were handed to a 14 year old who stuck the disk in the computer and read it at the machine code level. He's spot where registration required and patch the code around it so that the install wouldn't stop to ask for those details. Problem solved. All you need is a 14 year old nerd that knows how to code.
philh
Explorer II
Aug 28, 2019
Campfire Time wrote:
How did you activate it to begin with? You no longer have that code?

Depending on the programmer, how old the software is, etc., it's very possible the license is encrypted. So even if you can find it, it may not be a simple copy and paste.

Is there nothing else on the market that does something similar?

It was activated with a remote server using my license number, so that's why I'm guessing something in the registry.

It can be replaced with a different piece of software, but I've put a lot of time into this program's database and it serves my needs perfectly.
Campfire_Time
Explorer
Aug 27, 2019
How did you activate it to begin with? You no longer have that code?

Depending on the programmer, how old the software is, etc., it's very possible the license is encrypted. So even if you can find it, it may not be a simple copy and paste.

Is there nothing else on the market that does something similar?
AllegroD
Nomad
Aug 27, 2019
There are a number of pay products that find product keys. Google 'product key finder windows 10' or just 'product key finder'.
RobWNY
Explorer
Aug 27, 2019
I've had that happen a couple of times with different programs. Depending on what the program is, sometimes in the "Help" menu the license is shown. If it's not you can search for a crack but those don't work very often. You can always clone the old machine and put it on your new machine. Just make sure you have enough hard drive space on the new computer to accommodation the old computers hard drive. I wouldn't advise this option unless you know what you're doing though.

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