Brendan, I'll be glad to clarify the situation regarding trial versions of NCH Software products for the benefit of yourself and others.
Firstly, all of our licensed software products provide a 14-day free trial period when first installed. We don't actually have separate "trial" and "real" versions of the software. What you download from the NCH website IS the real software, which will run with all features activated for the temporary 14-day free trial period without you having to buy a license first.
To use the software beyond the 14-day trial you need to:
(i) buy a license;
(ii) use the 12-digit license serial number to activate the software licence on our website (this serial number is sent to you via email after the license purchase). After activating the license on the NCH website you will be allocated a license Registration and Activation Code for the software. This code is comprised of "Name - Location - ID - Key", and will be displayed on your browser and also sent to you via email;
(iii) register and permanently activate the software on your computer, using the license Registration and Activation Code. For Switch, you open the software's registration window by selecting 'File - Register Software' from Switch's menu bar. Enter the Registration and Activation code details - exactly as provided - into the four boxes in the ‘Step 3: Enter the license details’ section of the registration window, and then click the <OK> button.
Once the license Registration and Activation Code has been accepted, the Switch Plus software's features are permanently activated on the computer.
With regard to the "Mp3 Patent License Fees select for legal use of joint stereo or low bitrate under 32kbps mp3 mode" on the Buy Software page for Switch, NCH Software has to pay licensing fees for the use by our software of the patented encoder for 'joint stereo or low bitrate under 32kbps mp3'. We pass this cost onto customers who will be using Switch to convert to files with these attributes.
As far as there being both a basic freeware version of Switch and an advanced Switch Plus version that requires the purchase of a license, I'm not 100% certain of the current situation. So rather than misinform you, I have asked our marketing people to tell me what the official position is, and I will pass that information to this forum when I receive it.
Peter Marshall
NCH Software
