Quote - It is possible seems so far almost the same identical issue to when I helped you hidden files in AppDataRoaming folder which when previous version are uninstalled do not uninstall completely. Perhaps that is why the new version runs from the unzipped folder and does not actually install anything. But especially on Vista and Windows 7 machines that use a roaming profile folder this is a problem with the older installed version of Blacksmith3D all the files do not uninstall and when you try to run the new version there is a conflict.

I rebooted.

I'm not squeamish. I opened up regedit. I backed up my registry and did a find for blacksmith3d. Found one entry under debug and deleted it.  Did the same with realitypaint. It found some value listed in the audio of windows internet explorer. I didn't delete that file.

I tried both 32 and 64 version of blacksmith 3d and it gives me the same serial number problem.

Anything I did in the registry shouldn't require a reboot. I'm still open to any suggestions. Just for the heck of it I checked and magically, in the roaming data, there is a reference to Blacksmith3d. I'm going to delete it but I don't see what that has to do with a missing serial number.