Glad it works. Thank you for the feedback, rubbersoulster!
All these fixes read terribly complicated for me. Will there be an update that will keep my Scrivener running without losing data?
@ LFernand: Yes, there will be an official update on Monday most likely, without losing any work/data.
Yay! 
Phew!
Hi Tiho,
The new exe works for me. I am not getting the license warning any more, but the delay when opening happens every time I Start Scrivener. (the start screen will be white and unresponsive for ~10 seconds)
I’m on Windows 8.1 .Net version 4.8
Same problem today.
Thro the summer I used scriv only occas ionally including last week without any problems… Today my W10 -1903-64 bit box offered me a MS update of KB4511555 - which is a cumulative update for .NET 3.5 and 4.8 which I installed. So that update got the blame initially when Scrivener complained about .NET being out of date and activation manager unable to connect.
I was relieved to find this thread on the forum. I have downloaded the zip file from Dropbox and implemented the swap of scrivener.exe as advised by Tiho. Scrivener now starts ok with no nag boxes or complaints other than an initial warning from W10 about the origin of the exe file being unknown.
What was at the origin of this problem?
Hi All,
I managed to find further the startup delay experienced by only some of you.(Thank You, Jakob!)
A new Scrivener.exe is available in this archive:
dropbox.com/s/v6orz5b8aq4mt … r.zip?dl=0
Please, replace Scrivener.exe as before and let me know how it goes.
Do not worry about the Windows warning. The executable is not signed with the L&L signature and because of this your get a Windows warning. Once we release the official release over the next days, it will be all fine.
Thank You, Guys!
Tiho
Here’s the image I’m getting after I move the latest Scrivener.exe to Program Files (x86) and running Scrivener:
The license server is compromised.
[ snip ]
Scrivener will now be shut down. Please reinstall the application and purchase a valid license to continue using Scrivener.
Running the original Scrivener.exe, as well as yesterday’s, results a Trial Expired notice, and it asks for an email address and a license code.
I did not go so far as to do that.
I’m afraid I don’t really understand any of the technical stuff mentioned here as a solution so I really hope the upcoming update works as my Scrivener is now telling me my trial period has come to an end and I need to enter my licence number I’ve entered my licence number which I purchased in 2015 but it wouldn’t accept it Desperately crossing fingers here
In my case the program needs several starts and hangs at best several minutes before giving me control. And the new vrsion is even worse, I do not get control at all… I would appreciate it very much, if somebody from the technical staff would look into this problem, as I have to do an urgent final revision of my work of three years.
Okay, after a bit of experimenting, I’ve determined the following for Laptop #1:
Running today’s updated Scrivener.exe file shows me what I quoted in an earlier post.
If I run yesterday’s Scrivener_UPDATE1.exe, the programs asks for an email address and a serial number. Once that is entered, the program runs normally. I’ve closed and restarted numerous times to verify.
If I run the original Scrivener.exe v1.9x file, it behaves the same as yesterday’s updated Scrivener.exe, and runs normally.
I don’t know if that’s any help.
Hi again - tried your second fix, Tiho. Works fine but I can’t say the startup is perfect.
Initially, Scrivener starts up in a flash with the previous used project opened. But the formatting of the project is not correct and it takes a full 10 seconds of inactivity (in the visual sense - obviously something is going on in the background) before the project is ready to go, correctly formatted.
But, for me, that’s not a great problem.
Further to my last post, I have just looked in the drop down box under Help in Scrivener : the eighth entry which normally says “Deactivate Scrivener” now says “Deactivate Scrivener (Searching for License Server)” and it is grayed out.
So although I’m happily working as usual with no apparent problem, Scrivener is failing to connect to the License Server - wherever that might be. And I am using the second fix version just supplied today by Tiho. I’m on-line and working normally with no internet connection problems.
I’ve re-downloaded today’s Scrivener. exe file and copied it appropriately. It now runs accordingly.
Thanks for all the effort.
Hi,
Just tried out the fix on one of my Win10 Pro machines and it worked fine, no nag screen, no delays in startup to speak of. I will try later on my two other machines (they are in different location).
Thanx for the effort!
Tested the second fix on Intel-based Windows 10 Pro (full updated) notebook and AMD-based Windows 10 Home (full updated) desktop.
First run:
Intel notebook: 15 seconds from launch to be ready, Scrivener shows the 100% text scale before to switch at 130% (used) and become usable
AMD desktop: 14-15 seconds from lauch to be ready. Same as the notebook about text scale behaviour.
Following runs (same session, no windows restart):
Intel notebook: 9-10 seconds from launch to be ready
AMD desktop: same as first run (still 14-15 seconds)
Long story short, the second fix is faster the first fix for the following runs (the first run is similar) but only for Intel-based machine despite the AMD desktop was more powerful as hardware. Both fix are definitely better than Scrivener 1.9.13 (hung up for 25-30 seconds, sometimes freezed forcing quit, and, ofc, license activation error occasionally) but still slower than Scrivener 1.9.9 (the first version I used, I remember it worked perfectly and very fast on both my pc, surely faster than 9-10 seconds).
I guess the second fix makes a better use of Windows Prefetch or something like that. It would be nice it was optimized for AMD cpu too.
This about speed and freezes. About “2 weeks” message. I didn’t get others after I installed the fix executables, so I imagine this bug was fixed.
Following up on my previous post, tried the fix (downloaded today, identifies itself as “Version: 1.9.13.0 - 07 sep 2019”) on my other machines, Win10 Pro and Win7 Pro. Both ran without the nag screen, no noticeable delays (other than what I am used to, often switching between the Win and the iOS version and having complex projects with back-ups).
So as far as I’m concerned, this is absolutely fine 
[quote=“philjaq”]
Further to my last post, I have just looked in the drop down box under Help in Scrivener : the eighth entry which normally says “Deactivate Scrivener” now says “Deactivate Scrivener (Searching for License Server)” and it is grayed out.
I have a little further information about this today.
When I run Scrivener on W10 from my admin account, the “Deactivate Scrivener” entry in Help drop down displays correctly. When I’m running Scrivener from my unprivileged user account, the deactivate entry is greyed out and shows that it is searching for the license server.
Since I operate generally from the unprivileged user account, does this mean that in 2 months I’ll again get the warning that I’m going to revert to ‘trial’ version? Do I have to remember to run Scrivener from my Windows admin account at least once every 2 months?
That would seem like an unreasonable burden.
Re: using second fix version of scrivener.exe supplied by Tiho a couple of days’ ago –
Previously over the several years that I have been using Scrivener, every time I shut Scrivener down there would be a slight pause and a dialogue box with a progress bar would advise me that a copy was being made [strange, but I got so used to seeing it that I don’t remember exactly what words this box used].
Yesterday, after a lengthy writing session, when I closed down, this advisory no longer appeared and the closure of scriv was almost instantaneous.
This morning, when I started Scrivener, I got a warning that my project was already in use somewhere else or Scrivener had not closed down properly last time. I took the ‘continue anyway’ option and the project opened and was ok, complete and uncorrupted.
I have since repeated the shutdown, the advisory dialog still doesn’t appear but the project reopens ok. Is this a result of the changed exe file supplied by Tiho or a glitch on my pc?