When does the actual Rift 7 day trial take effect?

Does the actual 7 day countdown of the trial begin when you sign up on the Trion site, or does it begin/activate once you have downloaded the client? Sorry, I know this is stupid, but well, I was stupid and thought I could quickly install windows on my macbook. And more stupidity - being eager to try this, I signed up and registered on the site, without having windows all setup on my mac first. I didn't think it would be such a pain to get windows up and running. I mistakenly thought that windows installer came with the mac as part of the whole 'being able to run it on there now' campaign. So I gotta go get it :/ So the thing is, I'm really hoping the 7 day trial actually starts and activates upon download of the client. I looked all over, including the faq for an answer, couldn't find one, so came here. Yep I was dumb, I know, but would be extremely grateful to anyone willing and patient enough to let me know.