Hi Christopher,
We have several free and paid version of the Remote U. viewer version 6.8 and 6.9.
Our license is per major version. Your license key for version 6 works with any 6.x.x.x version regardless of the minor release number.
We accidentally upgraded the viewer to V,7, (Update pops up when initializing the viewer).
Yes, unfortunately we didn't update that mechanism in time to accomodate for major upgrade. We are sorry for that. But that doesn't mean that we force anyone to use version 7. Anyone can downgrade their Viewer if they are not eligible for free upgrade (customers who purchased in 2020-21 are).
Anyway our paid viewer V.6.8-6.9 upgraded to V.7, free for trial mode, and then the fun begins, after 30 days it stops working even with a (v.6.8-9) paid licence.
Version 7.0.0.0 was only released less than two weeks ago. Besides, you cannot add a v 6.x.x.x license key into v. 7.x.x.x Viewer. The latter requires a key of a new format.
The fun part is that when I uninstall the V.7 to reinstall V.6, Remote Utilities does not work anymore.
Sorry, but this is not true. Many of our customers decided not to use version 7, uninstalled it and re-downloaded version 6. Exactly for that purpose we maintain the
old versions download page - if you scroll down any page on our website you'll find the link to old versions page in the footer.
Remote Utilities license is just a static key used to unlock the trial. You don't even have to have Internet access in order to be able to register the Viewer. So we don't have any means to "block" older versions even if we wanted to. As for our ID server infrastructure - it will keep working for version 6 users, there is no change at all.
More fun came when I went inside registry to perform a complete program deletion
As far as the current version 7.0.0.1 Remote Utilities Viewer
does not keep any information in the registry. All locations where Viewer keeps its data are well known and published in the
How to completely uninstall Viewer guide.
It's only Host and RU Server that keep registry entries but these modules do not require a registration key.
** Remote Utilities company**
If you read this, Please fix this, stop losing money and customers, your customer service is inexistent.
Fix what? Downgrading to version 6 works as it should, except only if there are any technical issues (e.g. corrupted config or address book file, but there backups for that). As for bug fixes - this is the usual routine and we are currently preparing the next update with bugs found to date getting fixed.
Also, our upgrade policy have never changed for version 6 users. The major upgrade terms have always been the same - 1-year of free major upgrades and a 50% discount for those who are not eligible for free upgrade. Here is a
2017 Wayback machine link to our upgrade policy page.
As for the uninformative update prompt I've already acknowledged the issue. It will be definitely fixed so that the program informs the user not only about update per se, but also give the details.
