Serif PagePlus 4.0
I was just getting ready to come to WinWorld and beg for a working serial. I found an old warez CD that had it on, and spend some little time cleaning it up. Oh and DrawPlus 2.0 as well.
Serif made/makes great DTP, I would say much more usable than (read less buggy/proprietary)"The Print Shop" or Microsofts many products, and a hella cheaper.
But those guys own the market.
And I digress. So I go through all this work cleaning up the archive, checking it out, etc. Doing a search for matching images, I stumble on "Serif Graphics Collection 6", an ISO and an official collection of all of Serifs programs from that timeframe (1995-1996).
Serif made/makes great DTP, I would say much more usable than (read less buggy/proprietary)"The Print Shop" or Microsofts many products, and a hella cheaper.
But those guys own the market.
And I digress. So I go through all this work cleaning up the archive, checking it out, etc. Doing a search for matching images, I stumble on "Serif Graphics Collection 6", an ISO and an official collection of all of Serifs programs from that timeframe (1995-1996).
Comments
Even if you have the full version, you get greeted with a splash screen that says you have x number of days to go online and register, or it's a trial, and you have x number days, etc.
Aroundabout 2014 (I don't remember) Serif relaunched as Infinity, with a complete, bottom up new codebase.
Around 2021, Affinity announced that the company would no longer take registration requests, "and oh, by the way, here's the universal code you can enter to authorize your Serif product, and get rid of that irritating splash screen".
The code is "881887".
The other day, I come across "Serif PagePlus Home/Office Edition for Windows 95-NT version 1.0.
Hmm, 32bit app, uses16bit installer code. Did around, find a 32bit installer.
Install it on W10, x64, fires right up - fscking nag screen. OK, got the handyd dandy universal code, I'll stick it in and be done.
Nope - won't accept the code. Spent endless hours searching for others reporting this issue, or other fixes, dinked around with the program itself - finally found that modifying the registry would get rid of the "you have 90/120 days left to go online and register". But it did not and there is no setting to -get rid of the damn splash screen. Now it simply reads "there are benefits to registering" or something. But every time, the splash is there!!!
Pished me right the fsck off.
So, I got out my tools, found the the magic is all done in "SRFREG20.DLL". Patched it, and works a treat.
Stay tuned. Will upload someplace for volunteers to test.
BTW, my opinion of Serif dropped by a huge after this. It's so 2nd class. I mean, the apps have good, reliable core functionality at a bargain price. So senseless to be prickish.
And typical me, there is much more sought after software I could spend my few remaining brain cells on, but.... lololol