No free trial on this computer?

[Martin Wynne]

My version of H&M is 8.3.0.5750 , and the maintenance has expired.

As the maintenance renewal is quite expensive, I thought I would download the free trial of the latest H&M version to see if the changes are worth the cost. Or whether to carry on as I am and wait for the H&M 9 upgrade.

But it seems that the free trial is not available if you have an earlier version of H&M installed. I can't find any way to run 8.4.3.5940 as a free trial, other than by installing it on a different computer. Is this as intended?

I could do that, but as my other possible systems are Linux+Wine and Windows7 stand-alone (no internet), it's not going to be a very meaningful trial.

Presumably when H&M 9 is released, there will be a way for H&M 8 users to try a free trial before deciding to upgrade?

(On a minor point, the download instructions page: https://www.helpandmanual.com/download_instr_hm.htm refers to an .exe download, when in fact the actual download is a .zip and there is no mention of the need to extract the .exe from it.)

cheers,

Martin.

[Tim Green]

This is a gap in the licensing system: Once you have a licensed copy, you can't have an unlicensed copy. Even if you install to a new folder, you're still using the same Registry keys, including the licensing key. So currently, yes, your only way to test in free trial mode is on a machine where you don't have a licensed copy installed.

We switched to the zip instead of the exe because too many people were having problems with 3rd party AV systems, which continue to be the scourge of the Windows world. It's like smoking cigarettes: You're paying to be damaged.