I still have a SSP subscription called "Multi-IDE Bundle". This allows me to use all programming languages from NI. So I am happy. For a little time more, as this Bundle is no more. So I am stuck with what I have. Which is also fine with me.
For all the software I don't have SSP for, I can still download them and activate them on a trial basis. You get the usual 7 days or so of trial.
However, if you avoided installing a License Manager version newer than 4.7 ( that is software released before 2021 or so ) you will be able to set back the computer clock to the installation time for a certain module and then the module will run as activated again for some days. This is clearly not usable for commercial purposes except testing and learning.
So you can download old evaluation software made before 2018..2019 from the NI FTP site as mentioned and test/try it and get wiser. Without stress.
The catch here is that you should not install anything new marked as 2021. Like LabVIEW 2021. It will install a License Manager stamp'ed 2020 or newer, where NI has removed support for the clock set-back feature. And you cannot revert to an older License Manager except by re-imaging.
2018 was also the year where NI introduced their "Big Business" initiative. View some the NI-Days videos from 2018 to see the NI Sales excitement. Updated DIAdem, FlexLogger, InsightCM, InstrumentStudio, SystemLink and LabVIEW.
But since then nothing meaningful new released related to LabVIEW. So LabVIEW 2018 SP1 will be my final version for some years. Actually, NI deliberately removed features from 2019 so I cannot use it, nor any newer version.
Regards
Henning