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I remember Microsoft had a time limited version of Office on cd-rom that was sold for a couple bucks at Kinko's. You could replace a .dll in it and that removed the time limit.

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There was something similar (but I can't recall what) where you just set your clock far in the future (like 2010!) and then the trial would last that long + one month.

Or use any serial number from a Microsoft hardware device, or use all zeros except the rightmost number is "7", like, "00000007" or...

Corel once gave a German magazine a time-limited version of their graphics suite to put on the cover CD. You could overwrite a few .EXE files with their .BAK copies to turn it into the full version.

That issue of the magazine sold out pretty quickly once it became public knowledge. Corel issue a statement that replacing the files doesn't make it a legally licensed copy. I'm sure many people cared.

Edit: here's an article about it from that time. It was PC Direkt issue 5/2001. https://www.golem.de/0104/13530.html

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