In general - if the deployed software is somehow distinct, yes; if the only difference is in a license or registry key, no, not without additional configuration to capture that detail.
Natalie Overstreet Lias Senior Product Manager I don’t speak for Flexera, and we should all be grateful for that
@Natalie's response is quite correct, and I understand you are asking a general question here. However to give some more insight into the challenge here, you may find the following thread about a particular application (Quest Toad) interesting: "Unspecified" edition for "Toad for Oracle" versions 9 to 13. This is about recognizing different editions, but the same principle/challenge applies for recognizing a "trial" version as opposed to some other type of install.
(Did my reply solve the question? Click "ACCEPT AS SOLUTION" to help others find answers faster. Liked something? Click "KUDO". Anything expressed here is my own view and not necessarily that of my employer, Flexera.)
Thanks @ChrisG and @Natalie . I have read through the Oracle thread as we have a lot of apps with unspecified editions. I even opened a support case at one point but was not resolved.
Most of the examples of trial versions I have found are most likely general installs that require a license key to register. Is there any documentation on additional configuration that would identify them?
Kathy:
Though there are exceptions - in general, a "Trial" version of software has the exact same installation footprint as the fully licensed version - the difference being controlled by a License Key. This makes identification difficult because:
1) You need to know where the license key is located (local file/windows registry/etc)
2) The license key may be encrypted
3) Know the translation rules to interpret the license key to know if this is a trial install or not
At a higher level, a concept to keep in mind is that if you look at the actual EULA for most trial software, it will state that only 1 or 2 copies of trial software can be installed across the organization. You can understand why a publisher would not want you to install 25 instances of trial software. Therefore, even if you could determine that there are 25 installs of trial software for a product, it is likely that you would be legally obligated to license most of them anyway.
Trial software should be installed in a controlled sandbox/lab environment so the installs can be known and then within the license in FlexNet Manager they can be exempted from consumption.
