The reason you were denied over the phone is that your free technical support for EViews 4 has expired. Obviously, we cannot offer free support for previous versions of EViews indefinitely, and the policy has been to end such support after two product cycles, or 5 years after the introduction of the subsequent version, whichever comes later. Therefore, free EViews 4 support was only available during the life cycle of version 4 and version 5, or 5 years after the release of version 5.
Your predicament has, however, triggered some discussion here, and we would like to provide you with some assistance in this regard. Accordingly, we have decided to both clarify and extend our policies on support of previous versions.
1. Free technical support (including bug fixes, registration, and non-registration related installation issues) for single-user copies of EViews is available for two product cycles, or 5 years after the introduction of the next version, whichever comes later.
2. Technical support for copies of EViews purchased under a site license is only available for the duration of the site license contract (and only available to users listed under the contract).
3. Registration support for single-user versions which are no longer officially supported will offered for a nominal support fee, if technically feasible. The terms of registration must follow the original licensing agreement. Note that it may at some point be technically impossible for us to offer registration support for legacy versions.
I hope that you understand the reason for our policies and that the changes we have made will allow you to use your copy of EViews 4. If you contact
sales@eviews.com, they will handle your reinstallation, for the nominal support fee.