A. If you use setup disks that you created with an evaluation CD-ROM, your installation will expire, even if you entered a full-version registered product ID code. However, Microsoft doesn’t provide a method to determine whether your installation will expire or not, which is very annoying because the OS gives you only a 1-hour notice before shutting down.
Download WinInfo from http://www.savilltech.com/download/wininfo.zip, and the Installation Type value will show either
- Full version
- Time Limited Version (nnn days)
I want to give special thanks to Mark Russinovich at http://www.sysinternals.com for helping me to decipher the expiry information. However, don’t contact Mark or me to ask for the detection method because we won’t disclose it.
System Internals, http://www.sysinternals.com, released an excellent command line tool, istrial.exe, which also tells you if your version will expire.
