Autodesk’s AutoCAD trial gives you a full-featured 30-day experience of the software—perfect for testing workflows, plugins, and that one feature you’ve heard whispers about. Trying to “reset” the 30-day clock is tempting, but it’s important to know what’s allowed and what’s not, plus safer alternatives.

Before attempting any "reset," you need to understand what you are up against. The days of simply deleting a registry key or changing your system clock are long over. Autodesk has evolved its licensing infrastructure significantly.

Today’s AutoCAD trial uses a combination of:

You are not fighting a simple timer on your hard drive. You are fighting a cloud-connected, hardware-based license management system.

If you are a student, teacher, or academic staff, stop reading and go here. Autodesk offers free, full-featured, 1-year renewable licenses for students. You get the full commercial version of AutoCAD, not a watered-down trial.

NanoCAD offers a completely free version for 2D drafting. It uses the native DWG format and has a learning curve that is virtually identical to AutoCAD. No trial resets, no expiration.