What day was the new version update released? I haven't been on my PC for a couple of days because I was out of town on a family matter.

When I logged on, I got a message that a new version is available but it shows that the last day of my subscription was Sept 30th.

The new version is time stamped with September 30th, so you should be good.

The Winstep Update Manager will always warn you in no unclear terms if a new release falls outside your upgrade subscription period (even the version details appear in red). If that didn't happen, you're good.

Oh, oh. I just opened NextSTART to access the Update Manager which is the first time I've opened it for quite some time.

I noticed at the bottom it reads: License key is valid for all upgrades released until Sept 29, 2016.

I thought it was Sept 30th because the Update Manager has that date (in red as you mentioned) which doesn't bode well for me. Missed it by 1 day!