One could simply cease providing support for product A, re-name it to product B, and charge for a new license with same effect.
There's also no marginal cost in allowing lifetime licensees to download updates.
But regardless of that, discovering legal trickery to weasel out of a deal is morally bankrupt.
(EG, most licenses lay out... "v1.x updates only")
I have not seen companies saying "Lifetime updates to Bord, forever!"... then calling a same product "Zdft" to get out of updates.
I do wonder though how sympathetic a court would be to the plantiff if mIRC was brought to court? How enforceable is a lifetime contract? No answer needed just my own curiosity.
In 1906, the Canadian National Railway Company signed a contract for upkeep of a bridge, in perpetuity(forever):
https://www.ontariocourts.ca/decisions/2018/2018ONCA0517.pdf
When CN refused to reopen the Bridge for vehicles, Thunder Bay brought an application for a determination of its contractual rights under the 1906 Agreement. Two provisions of this Agreement are central to this appeal: s. 3, in which Grand Trunk Pacific agreed to give Fort William “the perpetual right to cross the said bridge for street railway, vehicle and foot traffic”; and s. 5, in which CN agreed to “maintain the bridge in perpetuity”.
If a mega-corp can't weasel out of a deal to maintain a bridge forever, I don't see how a software company can weasel out either.
CN tried all sorts of arguments, too, which essentially boiled down to "things are different now!", and "how could we have known!", which of course are meaningless arguments.
Especially if they hand out promises that last 80 years and more.
Really? Given that the product has died when the warranty is called in, that suggests that any such warranty is worthless. "This gadget is guaranteed to keep working until it stops working."