There are no issues with Media Encoder.
If you had followed all steps in the Troubleshoot Section, then the last thing you would have done would have covered it as a last resort, although if all patched properly then free trials should not be appearing.
Your claim isn’t valid either, nothing for Media Encoder changed between versions, and both use the same patching methods. So that difference does not prove anything in terms of functionality.
If you believe there is an issue, you should be providing your patch log output. That clearly shows what was and wasn’t patched and helps identify or clarify any actual problem instead of relying on assumptions.