Install retail product over trial version?

The guide in the box says "no need to uninstall previous versions", so I took them at their word. After 10 minutes of furious installation activity to add a serial number to the existing ATI 10 trial software, and a re-boot, my copy of ATI now shows the new serial number - and still tells me that it's going to expire in 3 days. Acronis = another company that doesn't do enough installation testing? Surely they realize that a lot of people might download the trial version to test, then install the retail product on top of it?

 

Well the answer is to uninstall the trial version. It can't be activated by adding a serial number. Uninstall and reinstall to correct the problem.

 

I guess I'll just wait and see if it does time out, and if so I'll uninstall and re-install. But I'm not impressed - the installation process should be smarter than that. Doesn't exactly inspire confidence in Acronis that one of the simplest and most likely installation sequences wasn't properly tested.

 

Its not a question of the installation process or testing. Acronis designed the Trial Version this way to prevent pirating. This issue has been discussed many times here and the answer is to uninstall the Trial Version. TI B3677 has worked quite well for me over the last 2 years and you will find a lot of folks here who have no problems with TI.

 

If the answer is to uninstall the trial version, then the instructions in the boxed retail version should have said that instead of "no need to uninstall previous versions". It's a bug, and either the program or the documentation should be fixed. Forget the lame excuses! Sloppy standards lead to sloppy products.

 

I don't think Acronis counts the Trial Version as a previous version. But you are correct, it is misleading and confusing.

Also, there is no reason that Acronis couldn't make the installer detect the Trial Version and automatically uninstall it prior to installing the regular version. A lot of installers do this. Even a message that says "Please uninstall the Trial Version and then rerun the installation" would be helpful.

 

I'm finding these days that lots of programs are best installed byu uninstalling any previous version. Even those that say you don't have to; still, sometimes you do. Having the innstaller take care of this is a user-friendly idea.