Activation problems during free weekend

It was probably just bad luck but when I went to try DCS for the free weekend, it said I needed to reactivate all my modules. This seemed to work for everything until I got to FC3 when it insisted my system clock was wrong, so I had to exit and couldn't load DCS. I did change my RAM recently, from 4*4GB to 2*8GB but I didn't think that would be enough.

I then tried again and it told me to reactivate all my modules again and I again had the problem when it got to FC3, so I've wasted two activations on some of my modules (I only activated some before it got to FC3, so the rest would have been after).

I managed to get into DCS without activating somehow and Module Manager shows the serial numbers for the modules I've bought and I can fly the KA-50, which it isn't prompting me to reactivate, but nothing else.

I'm getting a new GPU tomorrow, so I'm worried that even if I fix the problem now I'll have to reactivate again after changing the GPU, so I'd be grateful if someone could advise me what to do. Should I run these .reg files for my modules (other than KA-50/BS2) to clear the registry to start with or will that just waste another activation? https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/support/faq/564/#1780273

I doubt it's related but another issue I just noticed is that I'm still using the openbeta and it's using the Saved Games\DCS.openbeta folder even though I could have sworn I switched to stable using SkateZilla's Updater GUI but apparently I'm running 2.5.3.22176 and the latest stable is 2.5.2.21708.

Checking in the registry shows that Current User\Software\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World\DCS World is pointing to "S:\Games\DCS World" which is my only install. There's also a key for DCS World Openbeta but that points to the non-existent "F:\Games\DCS World Openbeta", so I'm not sure what's going on there.

So I managed to downgrade it back to v2.5.2.20785 using the command line after deleting Persian Gulf to make room. Now it needs to update to 2.5.3.22176 but needs 35GB and I've only got 19GB free, so I'll have to delete Persian Gulf again and update after the free trial has ended so it doesn't redownload it.

Anyway, now that's sorted I still need to know what to do about the activation problems.

Can anyone help me please? I've installed my new GPU now and I don't want to waste more activations if it's going to just prompt me to do them again each time I run DCS. I'm also still getting the error with FC3 about the time being wrong so I can't activate that at all.