[INFO] Timelimited Shareware Apps

[XQYZ]

You know these shareware apps. You propable like some of them, but you find yourself not having time to test them out during the samll amount of time they give you? Well, you know: On OS X there's no registry or other M$-"Ideas" where these Apps store their data (i.e. times used), so you'll most likely find them somewhere on the harddrive. This thread is just about a simple way how to locate them easily. In almost all cases you may not have started the application (or the game) ever on the mac you are doing this, or it will, in most cases, not work. So - ready? Then open up your terminal. Now we are going to create a list of all files (without the "root"-only one thought (note: if your app/game wants a root password, set sudo before the comand to get the "root"-only ones too).

find / >before

That's it. Now lanch the app and use it for a while, to let it know it's been used. Quit it. And run, almost the same command again:

find / >after

Now, we have to find the files, listed in the after Version, but not in the before version. We can do this with this command:

diff before after >diff.txt

Now check out the new files and try to change their content (for example set all numbers to 0 or 9999 to see what changes). To give you a little example I tried the whole thing on the demo-Version of the awsome game iConquer (which is the reason for posting it in the games board, maybe a mod can move it if it's unsuitable here). iConquer stores three files with the same data:

/Library/Application Support/.ic*

~/Library/Application Support/.ic*

/Applications/iConquer.app/Contents/Resources/English.lprojStatistics.strings

The data is a single number showing the "times used" (10 means "You need to buy it"). By writing a small script you can "reset it":

#!/bin/bash

cd "/Library/Application Support/"

rm .ic*

cd ~

cd "Library/Application Support/"

rm .ic*

cd "/Applications/iConquer.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/"

echo "0" >Statistics.strings

 

Hope this is helpful for someone. Have fun.

 

PS: Please feel free to post additional informations, scripts or "tipps" for some apps that work otherwise.