Activate by email

This is the path that works today, and it is the same exchange a firewalled site uses permanently. Everything happens inside Nabla's Help → Licence… dialog; we only ever see a request file that carries your key and a hashed machine fingerprint - no personal data.

1. Install Nabla

Run the installer from download.html. Every download is the same binary - Free, Core and Machines are all unlocked by the licence key, not by which installer you ran.

2. Open Help > Licence…

In the Nabla menu bar: HelpLicence… opens the licence dialog. Without a key activated yet, it shows "Nabla Free" and the 25,000-node CORE feature set.

3. Paste your key, export a request

Paste the NBL-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX key from your receipt or trial email into the licence key field, open "No internet access?" and press "Export request file". Nabla writes request.nbreq and prints the full path it used.

4. Email it to us

Send request.nbreq to info@nabla-fem.com. We reply with a response.nblic licence file, normally the same working day.

5. Import the reply

Save response.nblic in the directory the dialog named in step 3 and press "Import response file". Or paste the token we sent straight into the field below it and press "Activate from token" - the two are equivalent.

6. Done

The dialog now shows your edition and expiry. From this point on, verification is entirely offline: starting Nabla, meshing, solving and opening your models never touch the network at all.

One-click online activation - coming shortly

The licence dialog already carries an "Activate online" button: paste the key, press it, and Nabla binds the key to this machine in one step. Our licence server is not live yet, so for now that button reports "could not reach the licence server" and changes nothing - use the email exchange above instead. When the server goes live it will work without any update to Nabla, and existing licences are unaffected either way: they are verified locally and always will be.

Troubleshooting

Key rejected

Double-check for a typo - keys use an unambiguous alphabet (no 0/O or 1/I confusion), so a rejection almost always means a copy-paste error or a key meant for a different product. A licence file is bound to one machine, so a response.nblic issued for a different PC will be refused as well - export a fresh request.nbreq from the machine you want to license.

"All seats in use"

A key activates one machine. Moving to a different computer means freeing the seat first - while activation runs by email we do that for you, so send us the key and we will re-issue for the machine you want to use. Need a second machine of your own as well? Ask us and we will issue a second licence at no charge.

Key never arrived

Check spam first. If it's genuinely missing, email info@nabla-fem.com with your order reference and we'll resend it.