I saw the message that BOINC 6.2.18 was available and downloaded and installed it on both PCs. And in both cases it got the same error -- something saying that I did not have authority. I'm running XP and I am the only ID on this computer, and I have administrator authority. The BOINC failure note gave choices ABORT, RETRY, IGNORE. Multiple RETRY attempts on both PCs got nothing. So I tied IGNORE, and it then did the install. Then when I rebooted my PC, BOINC started okay, but I got repeated messages saying it was failing to restart work units and to reboot my PC. Rebooting the PC did no good at all -- same problem. I tried resetting the project -- no good -- same problem, even after yet another reboot. I have shut down BOINC on both PCs, since it is doing nothing but spinning its wheels with no work being done on any work units and just over and over the message about rebooting. BOINC 6.2.18 is dead in the water.

Just delete the RebootPending.txt file in C:\Program Files\BOINC

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Just delete the RebootPending.txt file in C:\Program Files\BOINC

There is no such file in C:\Program Files\BOINC on either of my PCs.

Have you tried searching for BOINC found mine in Documents and Settings/All User/application Data.

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Did you change the directory BOINC (not the data directory!) should be installed in?

madmac, that's the default data directory. The rebootpending.txt file won't be in there, it'll be in the BOINC directory.

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Did you change the directory BOINC (not the data directory!) should be installed in?

madmac, that's the default data directory. The rebootpending.txt file won't be in there, it'll be in the BOINC directory.

BOINC is installed in C:\Program Files\BOINC on both PCs.

I did a global search for rebootpending.txt on both PCs, and there is no such file in any directory on either PC.

OK, then that's not it. I'm assuming it's got something to do with the original problem you ran into. You can probably find the exact error message you got in the Event Viewer.

Which version of BOINC did you have before?
How was that one installed?
Did you uninstall it before you installed 6.2.18, or did you leave that up to the new version?

With 6.2.18 did you use the protected mode install, or the unprotected one?
Do you have permission to make changes to the BOINC directory?
Do you have permission to make new user accounts?
-- Were the new BOINC user accounts made? (boinc_admin, boinc_project, boinc_master, boinc_users)

When you do start BOINC on one of the PCs and look in Task Manager, what user account is running boinc.exe, boincmgr.exe and any (if at all) application?

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Which version of BOINC did you have before?
How was that one installed?
Did you uninstall it before you installed 6.2.18, or did you leave that up to the new version?

I believe the prior version was 6.1.14 or 6.2.14 - I am sure of the 6 and the 14. That one had been installed via a download over the prior version that I had. I let the new version deal with the uninstall of the prior version, since I did not want to lose my settings.

Basically, this was a straight vanilla install -- until it hit that error message on both PCs.

With 6.2.18 did you use the protected mode install, or the unprotected one?
Do you have permission to make changes to the BOINC directory?
Do you have permission to make new user accounts?

I left the settings as they had been. I did not even look at what they were, but they were what worked for the prior version. If I recall, of the three check boxes, the top one was unchecked and the bottom two were both checked. They were all grayed out, so that I could not change them anyway unless I went to the advanced. Yes, I am the sole user of the PC with XP administrator privileges. And there is only one account on each PC.

-- Were the new BOINC user accounts made? (boinc_admin, boinc_project, boinc_master, boinc_users)

I don't understand this question. There was no creation of new accounts. I am using the same account that I have used since the inception of SETI. When I reset the project, it got rid of all the existing work units and downloaded a slew of new ones, as well as a bunch of other files.

When you do start BOINC on one of the PCs and look in Task Manager, what user account is running boinc.exe, boincmgr.exe and any (if at all) application?

The account that is running BOINC and any other non-system things is the one account that I have on this PC.

-- Were the new BOINC user accounts made? (boinc_admin, boinc_project, boinc_master, boinc_users)

I don't understand this question. There was no creation of new accounts. I am using the same account that I have used since the inception of SETI.

In Windows.

BOINC 6.2 makes new "user accounts" with limited permissions on your computer. They won't show as users that you can log on with in Windows, but they're there. Especially if you used the protected mode install (on by default, making it a service install).

Now, if you had 6.1.14 before this time, these accounts will already have been made. 6.2.14 will have made them as well. They're then only checked upon when you install a newer version.

But the thing is, the reboot will only be needed if the old client was of a version before 6.2.12 (if I am not mistaken). 6.2.14 -> 6.2.18 should not need a reboot. That reboot is only there to authenticate the new user accounts in Windows (albeit disputed by some that this isn't necessary at all, it is necessary to enable BOINC to run again).

If I recall, of the three check boxes, the top one was unchecked and the bottom two were both checked. They were all grayed out, so that I could not change them anyway unless I went to the advanced. Yes, I am the sole user of the PC with XP administrator privileges. And there is only one account on each PC.

Could you try on one PC to uninstall BOINC 6.2.18, then reinstall it, go Advanced and take the check off of the third option (allow all users on this computer to control BOINC)?

If that fixes it, you found a bug with the multi-user control option on a computer with a single account (although there's always two accounts as the big admin account is also there, but hush about that. ;-))

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Could you try on one PC to uninstall BOINC 6.2.18, then reinstall it, go Advanced and take the check off of the third option (allow all users on this computer to control BOINC)?

I uninstalled BOINC via the Control Panel.

I thought that it was worth trying a plain vanilla reinstall first. So I left the check boxes as they were: top one unchecked, bottom two checked. I did not receive the error message that had occurred in the first install. And things are working fine now.

So I tried the same thing on the other PC, and it worked there too.

So I did not try the install that you suggested.

FYI ... I was able to confirm that my prior version was 6.2.14

OK, as long as it's working, it's all right with me. I'll wait for a next victim to test this with. :-)

Glad you got it fixed.

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Installed the 6.2.18 and it shut down the second core from processing. Now, I can only process one WU at a time. Is there a way to uninstall the "upgrade" without losing everything. I have already nuked it once becuase all of a sudden all the work units resported compute error. I would really rather fix the problem with it now using the second core than nuke it again.

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Normally, when you uninstall through Add/Remove Programs, BOINC will remigrate the Data directory into the BOINC directory.

But this is just a preferences setting that you need to adjust:
- Computing preferences
- Edit them.
- On multiprocessors, use at most 100% of the processors
- Save changes.
- Open BOINC Manager->Advanced view->Projects tab->Select Seti->Click Update to get those changes in.

Alternatively, if you use the local preferences, you will need to change this option in there. BOINC Manager->Advanced view->Advanced->Preferences->Processor Usage->On multiprocessors, use at most 100% of the processors->OK.

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Normally, when you uninstall through Add/Remove Programs, BOINC will remigrate the Data directory into the BOINC directory.

But this is just a preferences setting that you need to adjust:
- Computing preferences
- Edit them.
- On multiprocessors, use at most 100% of the processors
- Save changes.
- Open BOINC Manager->Advanced view->Projects tab->Select Seti->Click Update to get those changes in.

Alternatively, if you use the local preferences, you will need to change this option in there. BOINC Manager->Advanced view->Advanced->Preferences->Processor Usage->On multiprocessors, use at most 100% of the processors->OK.

I had it set to use 95% of the processors which should have let ti run both cores like prior versions of BOINC. I reset it to 100% and closed and re-started and the second core started working again. Doesn't make any sense that it should require the 100% setting as long as it was above 50%.

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I had it set to use 95% of the processors which should have let ti run both cores like prior versions of BOINC. I reset it to 100% and closed and re-started and the second core started working again. Doesn't make any sense that it should require the 100% setting as long as it was above 50%.

I would suspect that its probably only going to use 50% or 100% if you have 2 cores/cpu's. And probably only 25, 50, 75 or 100% on a quaddie. That is it only uses an exact multiple of however many cores/cpu's your computer has.

This is one of the things that changed from 5.10.45, where it used to specify the actual number to use (default was 16).

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BOINC blog

I had it set to use 95% of the processors which should have let ti run both cores like prior versions of BOINC. I reset it to 100% and closed and re-started and the second core started working again. Doesn't make any sense that it should require the 100% setting as long as it was above 50%.

Just being conservative. The percentage always rounds down unless that would result in 0 CPUs in use.

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