Ever since Windows 7 was officially released, many antivirus company such as Kaspersky, Panda, ZoneAlarm, IObit, F-Secure and a-squared was fighting to give out free license subscription for a limited time because they know that Windows 7 is such a huge success and many users would be on the look out to find an antivirus that can run on Windows 7. Yesterday I got to know about another promotion for ESET NOD32 v4 by PCGamesHardware which gives a free 6 months subscription from ivan_baroveca in forum. If you don’t know what is ESET NOD32, it is an antivirus software package made by the Slovak company ESET and is commonly known as NOD32. If you check out this comparison page, it shows that ESET wins in terms of detection, performance and awards when compared to Norton, F-Secure, Kaspersky, McAfee and AVG.

All PCGamesHardware provided was a ZIP file to download which contains a cfg.xml file. As far as I know, ESET products are activated based on username and password. Every subscriber has their own unique username and password that can be used to download the installers and also to obtain the latest ESET virus definition. So I opened the XML file with notepad, took a quick look and found the username in clear text but the password is encrypted. Normally NOD32 username would start with EAV- followed by 8 random numbers and Smart Security with ESS-.
decrypt ESET XML password
Continue reading on how to license ESET NOD32 v4 with the cfg.xml file provided by PCGamesHardware.

At first I didn’t know what to do with the XML file but after a while I found out that ESET supports importing and exporting settings via XML file. Just follow the few simple steps on how to get your free 6 months ESET NOD32 license.

If this is you don’t have ESET NOD32 installed on your computer:
1. Download NOD32 v4 cfg.xml file provided by PCGamesHardware and extract.

2. Download the latest version of ESET NOD32 v4 trial. For 64-bit users, you can get it from here.

3. Install and follow the on screen instructions.

4. At the bottom left area where it says Display: Standard mode, click on the Change… link and click Yes button.
Change NOD32 display mode

5. Click on Setup at the left pane and then click Import and export settings.

6. Make sure that “Import settings” is selected and click on the … button to browse for the cfg.xml file.
eset import and export settings

7. Restart your computer and update virus signature database. NOD32 will download around 21MB to upgrade from trial to licensed version. If ESET fails to upgrade, try updating again. I had to update twice in order to get it right.

If you already have ESET NOD32 installed on your computer, you will only need to download the cfg.xml file and import it at Advanced mode. I tried using Nirsoft’s Asterisk Logger to reveal the asterisk behind the NOD32 password but it doesn’t work. However when I tried using Password Viewer which also does the same thing as Asterisk Logger, it worked perfectly by showing the hidden password!
decrypt eset password
Looks like ESET has blocked Nirsoft’s Asterisk Logger but not Password Viewer. I could just provide the ESET NOD32 username and password that I’ve decrypted from the cfg.xml file here but I don’t think it’s appropriate because I believe the license can get blacklisted very quickly. This license valid until 4/21/2010 which is less than 6 months because the promotion started on October.

Here are some unrelated information to today’s topic. There seems to be quite a lot of free license promotion going around. I will list them out here so you won’t wake up to another article of “Free this and free that”. ZoneAlarm and F-Secure offer has just expired…

1. McAfee VirusScan® Plus3-User with SiteAdvisor for 12 months
http://us.mcafee.com/en-us/affiliates/vmware/landingpages/16288.asp?cid=48523

2. IObit Advanced System Care Pro Edition
http://db.iobit.com/license-free/asc-free-license.php

3. a-squared Anti-Malware 4.5
http://www.emsisoft.com/en/order/24h/

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