My copy of Houdini installs a new license every time it is started,
in spite of it being added to the exception list for Windows Firewall.
I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium, and Free Apprentice.

Can anyone tell me why?

Make sure your logged in as administrator and turn off all the anti virus.Maybe then you can start discounting causes

circusmonkey
Make sure your logged in as administrator and turn off all the anti virus.Maybe then you can start discounting causes

Will do, and get back to you. Had no idea anti-virus could be an issue.

As administrator is my default acct, it was no
problem to simply fire up msconfig and disable
the startup items. Now Apprentice is behaving
itself. It was indeed the anti-virus which was
at fault.

Thank you very much!