I'm just curious. I've got a broken program that needs fixing.

 

Have you tried turning it off and then turning it back on again?

 

Ping G

Also, what program?

 

 

It's for work. Diagnostic software for Machinery that has been orphaned. The program has a provision that makes it time out and stopped functioning but the company that provided it no longer is in business. But we have sold machines to customers that are still using them and we need to be able to have our mechanic's laptop communicate with the machines sometimes. You can't just send a company that doesn't exist an email and tell them that you want to re-up your software.

Compensation is available for someone who is able to accomplish this task.

 

Got a link to the software?

 

A virtualized guest OS with wrong date/time setting may do the trick, but it has to be kept off-line from internet or host OS, otherwise the guest OS and app may find actual real date. It all depends on the mechanism for the trigger - host based time, internet based time, up-time counter, etc. Most likely doable, but is also surely to be against TOS/EULA/contract with defunct company, which will not stop copyright/intellectual property owners from suing if they find out.

 

Maybe this ones obvious, but companies rarely vanish entirely. Someone buys the assets or has old equipment sitting around. Can you get in touch with the former employees, or owners and track down someone who might be able to address the issue?

 

There is also a good chance of the trigger information being recorded in an config file or even more likely in the registry for this application. Resetting or changing values may solve the issue.

 

Or it could be pinging an external server for license verification. That's also pretty easy to fix. Run Wireshark to see if the program is making external requests.