How-to activate your BackyardEOS or BackyardNIKON purchase or trial key

[admin]

Here is a quick how-to on how to get and activate your BackyardEOS or BackyardNIKON purchase or trial key.

First Step, getting your key:

1. Create an account here on otelescope.com.
2. If you already have an account please sign-in now.
3. Go to our store and add a Trial, Classic, or Premium edition in your cart and proceed to checkout.
4. Your key will be issued immediately once the checkout is complete.
5. You can access your key from the website top menu bar under "My Purchases -> Orders".

You need to go through this process even for trial keys.  This is because the act of going though the checkout process will instruct the activation server to generate and assign you a key.  You WILL NOT be asked to enter a credit card for a trial key.

 

Second Step, download your software and initial activation:

1. If you are not already signed in please do it now; you can only download BackyardEOS and BackyardNIKON if you are signed in.
2. Go to the download page and download your software.
3. In some cases your anti-virus may give you a warning, this is a false positive.  All downloads from the otelescope.com website are 100% virus free.
4. Install and start your software; enter your activation key and identifier as they appear in "My Purchases -> Orders" when prompted.
5. Note that the identifier is case sensitive so make sure to respect upper and lower case in your identifier.

NOTE: If you already have a trial installed on your computer you DO NOT need to download again (unless a new version has been released and you wish to install the latest version).  You can keep the same version and follow the instructions in the third step below to activate your new purchase key.

 

Third Step, activating a purchase key when a trial is already installed:

1. Start BackyardEOS or BackyardNIKON on your computer.
2. If your trial key has already expired you will be prompted to enter your purchase key automatically.
3. If your trial key has not expired you will not be prompted to enter a purchase key.  Instead start BackyardEOS or BackyardNIKON and click on the padlock icon in the upper right corner then click "Edit Activation Key" and enter your purchase key there.
4. Restart BackyardEOS or BackyardNIKON and your new key will be activated.

Hope this helps,

Regards,

 

 

 

[arioch1st]

I have been sent a replacement product key which is five lines long, This does not seem to work in the latest version v3116.

Am I entering it wrong?

Regards

SJ Fletcher

[admin]

This was not a replacement key, it was your original key, which will only work with version 3.0.

For 3.0 that key is fine.

For 3.1 you need to follow the upgrade instructions to upgrade your key to the new 3.1 format.

Hope this makes sense.

Regards,

[astronomyman]

On ‎04‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 2:30 PM, admin said:

This was not a replacement key, it was your original key, which will only work with version 3.0.

For 3.0 that key is fine.

For 3.1 you need to follow the upgrade instructions to upgrade your key to the new 3.1 format.

Hope this makes sense.

Regards,

Sorry no it does not. How do I upgrade my key to the new format, Please?

[admin]

Upgrade instructions here.

https://www.otelescope.com/store/category/2-backyardeos/

 

[astronomyman]

20 minutes ago, admin said:

Upgrade instructions here.

https://www.otelescope.com/store/category/2-backyardeos/

 

Thank you very much for the swift reply

Regards Tony

[dickey]

I purchased a copy of BackyardNIKON 1.0 Premium Edition [OTL-BYN-P] and installed it on an old laptop that I am no longer using. May I install it on a new laptop that I purchased recently.

[astroman133]

The End-User License agreement is included in the PDF User Guide which may be launched by clicking on the question mark button at the upper right of the main BYE/BYN window. Below are the relevant paragraphs for your convenience.

1. We grant you one single user license to install and use the software on one
computer at a time. If you do not agree to the following terms of this license, please
uninstall and remove all copies.

2. You may install and use the software on another computer, but the software
should not be in use on more than one computer at a time unless you purchase
additional licenses. You may make back-up copies of the software for archival
purposes. You may not transfer your license to use the software to another party.

[admin]

1 hour ago, dickey said:

I purchased a copy of BackyardNIKON 1.0 Premium Edition [OTL-BYN-P] and installed it on an old laptop that I am no longer using. May I install it on a new laptop that I purchased recently.

Sure you can.  Just follow the instructions in the first post of this thread.

Regards,

[Adastra221]

I have just completed the trail purchase process, but when starting BYN it repeatedly requests the key as if it has expired. How do I get to use what should be a valid non-expired trial key? 

Edited June 1, 2018 by Adastra221
typo

[Adastra221]

Further to my last posting, I've followed the advise given but no change, the request for a key just returns with each attempt and thus I get no further. Of note, which may be of importance, the version I'm trying to run on a old pc is BYN v1.0

[admin]

2 hours ago, Adastra221 said:

Further to my last posting, I've followed the advise given but no change, the request for a key just returns with each attempt and thus I get no further. Of note, which may be of importance, the version I'm trying to run on a old pc is BYN v1.0

Trial keys will only work with the latest version.  You need to download the latest.

Regards,

[Adastra221]

Hi,

Thanks for your speedy reply. By chance I tried using the latest version which worked fine, so came to the same conclusion that you've confirmed for me.

Thanks again,

Regards

Dave

[bilgebay]

Hello Guylain, hope this message finds you well. Just downladed the BackyardNikon trial. Unfortunately, keeps asking me to enter the license key and identifier continously. Maybe the system needs some time aftr the download to take care of the details ? What am I doing wrong ?

[admin]

6 minutes ago, bilgebay said:

Hello Guylain, hope this message finds you well. Just downladed the BackyardNikon trial. Unfortunately, keeps asking me to enter the license key and identifier continously. Maybe the system needs some time aftr the download to take care of the details ? What am I doing wrong ?

This is a windows registry issue.

I actually uploaded a potential fix for this last night.

Please download BYN 2.1.0.RC6 and report your findings.

 

 

[bilgebay]

Sorry, that didn't help  Same thing.

[admin]

1 minute ago, bilgebay said:

Sorry, that didn't help  Same thing.

Can you send me that log file.

[admin]

Also, can you look in C:\Users\<<username>>\AppData\ and confirm if the file BackyardNIKONv21-license.txt exists or not.

[bilgebay]

Sure, I am at the 2.1 directory. What is the name of the log file.. I only see log4net.dll.

[bilgebay]

4 minutes ago, admin said:

Also, can you look in C:\Users\<<username>>\AppData\ and confirm if the file BackyardNIKONv21-license.txt exists or not.

that doesn't exist

[astroman133]

 You are correct. Some users experienced issues with Windows 10 folder permissions that prevented BYN and BYE from accessing the AppData folder. As a result, the storage location of the license data was changed.

Can you tell us what you mean by "keeps asking me to enter the license key and identifier continuously". Did you enter your trial license key and your username as the identifier into the license validation dialog? 

 

[admin]

6 minutes ago, bilgebay said:

that doesn't exist

the folder or the file does not exists?  It's a windows hidden folder so you need to set Windows to show hidden folders.

[admin]

10 minutes ago, bilgebay said:

Sure, I am at the 2.1 directory. What is the name of the log file.. I only see log4net.dll.

You not in the correct folder.

Default log folder is <<my pictures>>\BackyardTEMP\logs.

[bilgebay]

HEre are all the log files.

logfile-[20200623-17h03m20s707]-[5628]-2020-06-23.txt logfile-[20200623-17h02m25s873]-[3864]-2020-06-23.txt logfile-[20200623-16h41m22s719]-[5736]-2020-06-23.txt logfile-[20200623-16h40m09s680]-[1160]-2020-06-23.txt logfile-[20200623-16h32m12s035]-[8984]-2020-06-23.txt logfile-[20200623-16h04m17s121]-[8748]-2020-06-23.txt logfile-[20200623-15h59m07s091]-[7848]-2020-06-23.txt logfile-[20200623-14h47m28s318]-[1200]-2020-06-23.txt logfile-[20200623-14h41m38s107]-[8476]-2020-06-23.txt

[bilgebay]

19 minutes ago, astroman133 said:

 You are correct. Some users experienced issues with Windows 10 folder permissions that prevented BYN and BYE from accessing the AppData folder. As a result, the storage location of the license data was changed.

Can you tell us what you mean by "keeps asking me to enter the license key and identifier continuously". Did you enter your trial license key and your username as the identifier into the license validation dialog? 

 

Hi Astroman,

 

This is W7 machine, What I mean is I enter the requested info and then licence entry window  turns to a blank form again.

[bilgebay]

23 minutes ago, admin said:

the folder or the file does not exists?  It's a windows hidden folder so you need to set Windows to show hidden folders.

the Appdata folder is visible but the file is not there.. here is a screen shot

[bilgebay]

I'm installing it on another computer now.. let's see what happens.

[bilgebay]

yep that worked just fine.. it must be a machine specific issue...

 

[astroman133]

I should also say that the How-To Forum is not the place to ask questions. If the How-To information did not address your question or solve your issue, you should have posted to a new thread in the BYN Forum (or the BYE Forum for a Canon camera).  The vast majority of users do not have a problem validating their license, but if everyone who did replied to this post then it would be difficult for any reader of the thread to find help for their issue.

Thanks!

[admin]

1 hour ago, bilgebay said:

yep that worked just fine.. it must be a machine specific issue...

 

It's a windows registry write access specific issue, so yes, you are correct in that it is machine specific.

In any case, please re-download 2.1.0.RC6.... re-install... and try again... I made a small change to make sure the license file is created when writing to the registry fails.

 

[bilgebay]

That last update nailed it. Thanks for your super fast assistance. Clear skies.