Fix for 4 5 (5 5) Your license has expired issues

[Scott Vibert]

Over the last few months a number of you have emailed about the error boxes that seem to pop up following a windows update that has a 4 5 (or 5 5) or otherwise says that your license has expired.

 

For the record: Your license will never expire!

 

However some windows update seems to erroneously cause issues with the license. The fix for this is simple. Simply unlicense the game on your computer. Once you unlicense the game, you can relicense and run the game like normal, with no need to wait for support to be able to respond to your email.

 

Instructions on how to unlicense are found below:

 

- Right-click on the shortcut you use to launch the game.
- Go to properties
- Go to the target box and at the end of the current entry add: -unlicense
- Press apply and OK to exit
- Double click to launch the game. 
You will see the order ID and below there will be a box you can use to unlicense.

 

Alternatively, you can do the same thing as above in a slightly different way by using the command prompt method to unlicense it. Create a folder called Test on your hard drive and copy and paste TEW2020.exe and elicen40.dll from your normal TEW folder into it. Go to your Windows Start menu and select Run. Then type "cmd" (without the quotation marks) and press enter. You will see a command prompt. Type:

 

"C:\Test\TEW2020.exe" -unlicense

 

This will unlicense the game. Notice that there is a space after the final quotation mark, and that there is no space between the dash and the word "unlicense".