I just bought and downloaded the BS2 patch and when I try to install it onto my existing Black Shark sim, it fails with the error "DCS Black Shark must be installed". I am certain I am not the only one that is encountering this but I have not had much luck using the search engine, and the ED forum is down.

Has anyone come up with a workaround?

EDIT: I saw some mentions about a new installer but I didnt see any details that it was specifically about this. Is it?

The BS2 installer only works with a fresh original v.1 of BS1. You can't have the BS 1.02 patch on. Just unistall the 1.02 patch via Add/remove and you're good to go. Once you have BS2 installed you can then re-apply the patch to BS1 if you want to. You'll have two versions of BS on your HD then. Me, I just uninstalled BS1 completely.

EDIT: the new installer probably takes patch 1.02 into account

Have tried every work around possible and nothing works. Been a BS1 user since day 1 and have un-installed and re-installed 12 times to all 4 of my internal hard drives. Nothing has changed that
error from popping up. They are forcing me to await a new installer after paying 2 days ago.

Uninstall DCS Black Shark

Remove any folders associated with DCS Black Shark

Remove any registry entries associated with DCS Black Shark

Install DCS Black Shark version 1.0.0

Launch DCS Black Shark version 1.0.0

Run a mission in DCS Black Shark version 1.0.0

Register your version of DCS Black Shark

Exit the mission

Install DCS Black Shark 2

The above steps should work. If you install DCS Black Shark and run it and it does not prompt you to enter a authorization code then the Black Shark 2 install will not work.

JimK, first of all apologies for the problems you're having. We've been working on a new installer.

After you re-installed BS1, did you activate it? This is necessary for the key to register in windows.

It was automatically active on re-install. You need to provide better instructions as to getting it working. I never mess around in the registry. Fix the installer. Should not be selling software that does
this. You can bet, I won`t be in line for another online purchase this way.

Why is your support forums offline ? Release to soon without testing across a variety of computers ?
Overwhelming your servers with complaints ?

I tried uninstalling the BS1 v1.0.2 patch but it kinda corrupted BS1 so I simply reinstalled the original v1.0.0 files on top of the existing corrupted version and this seems to have fixed BS1. It also allowed me to install BS2 so now that is working great. I then reinstalled the BS1 v1.0.2 patch and that all works now too!

What I did find odd is that the "BS2 patch" wants to install in a completely different location from the original BS1. Does BS2 use anything at all from the BS1 folder or it is just making sure that you had purchased the previous iteration of the sim and that is all? (which makes sense if they are giving a 'discount' for those who had bought the sim once already)

I then tried to get the training files for BS2 (for completeness) and all the links on the DCS webpage are broken.

No, that is not the reason.
Also, note that the support section on the ED forums is community support. ED customer support is reached through the website, not the forum. (Though testers, moderators and members generally try to help out on the community support as well.)

http://support.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/

I came up against this problem lately. It argued me a lot, really. And no solutions from other forums helped. Now I figured my own solution! I post it in case someone still needs one. Here ist is: BS1 and BS2 MUST BE INSTALLED FROM AN ADMIN ACCOUNT! The "Run as Administrator" is not enough (although it should be)!!! After BS1 and BS2 have been installed in an admin account, they can be launched and activated from a non-admin account. That's it. I had this issue with some other apps too. Sometimes this run as admin doesnt work properly.