The other day I found that my copy of mIRC was showing as unregistered, with the nag screen back in place, something I hadn’t seen for years. I’d just done a Windows update so naturally assumed it was to blame because it was a convenient coincidence.
I had my doubts, though, so when mIRC opened a browser tab that took me to a handy “register your copy of mIRC” page, I looked it over and found this:
Question: Will my registration work with newer versions of mIRC?
Answer: If you are a home user, your registration entitles you to ten years of free updates to new versions of mIRC.
I looked up my original registration email and discovered I had done so in 2004. I actually got a bonus year out of registering, apparently. Strangely, I was still annoyed. On the one hand, getting to use the software for ten years before having to pay again is a pretty good deal when most similar recurring licenses (Office 365, Adobe Creative Cloud, etc.) charge yearly. And yet there was something about the program wiping out my registration as if it never existed–and doing so without warning–that rubbed me the wrong way. I started looking at open source IRC clients but eleven years of using mIRC has made me very comfortable with its interface (and quirks and flaws, of which it has more than a few).
Right now I am running it in “free” mode and putting up with the nag screen while I ponder what to do. I’ll probably pony up the $15 registration fee and be good until 2025. By then I’ll have forgotten all of this and will write this post again.
