FakeDate Tutorial

How it works

• Passing arguments on the command line, or
• using an INI file, or
• using a combination of both methods.

Those different mechanisms are provided for convenience:

• If you use INI files only, you don't have to change the Windows shortcuts and Start menu entries of the applications you want to run with FakeDate. However, you then have to follow certain rules how to name the INI file and where to place it. You also must rename your target application (see below).
• If you use the command line or a combination of command line and INI files, you can place the files wherever you like, but you can't use FakeDate with your old Windows shortcuts and Start menu entries then. (You can, of course, change them accordingly or create new ones.) Read the full documentation to FakeDate for more information on how to use this method.

It's completely up to you which of these ways you choose.

Example

Let's say you have a 30-day trial version of an application app.exe. You installed it on November 01, 1999. FakeDate is used with app.exe the following way:

1. Take the file fakedate.ini from the FakeDate package and put a copy of it into app's directory.
2. Rename app.exe to, for instance, realapp.exe.
3. Place a copy of fakedate.exe in app's directory and name it app.exe. If you want to, you can give it the icon of your original app.exe to make the Windows shortcuts to the application look like they used to, because now they reference of course FakeDate instead of app!
4. Edit fakedate.ini. There's a line run=progname.exe in it. Change it to run=realapp.exe.
5. There's also a line date=1994/01/31. Change it to, for instance, date=1999/11/10 (you could also use older dates of course, but as already said, some programs won't run if the system time is older than their installation time). Note that the date must be of the format YYYY/MM/DD. You can also adjust the other parameters if you like.

That's it: From now on, your trial app won't expire anymore, ever :-) !