Evening all,

A little background, I've been crunching since 1999 started on a Pentium 1 200mhz and now mainly crunch on my home PC Xeon e5-2699 44core

I am a IT Manager for a school and there is only me who looks after everything IT related, so I have domain admins and I am responsible for everything on the network, so I can make this decision as it is mine to make. The query is, I am struggling to know where to begin with deploying Boinc for use with Seti via Group Policy.

I could easily start of with an additional 60 PC's across the two IT suites. However I have 10years as desktop engineer, but being a system admin is only recent in the past year.

Can anyone provide an almost dummies guide on configuring a the installer for GPO to push out Bonic with the following:
-Silent install
-Preconfigured to setup with seti and my account details
-To only run a service so its active whilst the computers are not in use and sat at the logon screen
-Ensure it doesn't run whilst the computers are in use.
-No visible system tray icon
-No screensaver.
-Removal / uninstall route as a rollback

Summer is coming up soon, and I am full time staff, so whilst I'm rebuilding PC's and performing maintenance over the summer holidays, its quiet as there are no students are teaching staff in.

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Check the BOINC Wiki here.

The "Running BOINC: advanced" and "Mass deployment of the BOINC client" sections should be helpful.

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Before you jump in and install BOINC across the whole of your networks remember to make sure that the board is happy with this. I say this because one school/college IT manager lost his job because he didn't, and they sacked him when they noticed a large power bill when there was meant to be no activity.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Yerh I remember reading this or a similar article. A little harsh of decision I felt. But I'm 26th in the UK! Need a big push and 518 worldwide :)

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If you want to read the whole story, or at least the closing chapter here's a link:
https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=56411#951731
And bear in mind that it is one of the conditions of use for both BOINC and SETI@Home that they are only installed on computers that one either own or have the specific permission of the owner of those computers to do so. Just be careful, and think things through fully before you end up being "Son of Nez".

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

So tried to make start with this, but as expected, stumbled early on.

Within Orca, I cant find:

Click on the Properties table.
Modify the INSTALLDIR and DATADIR properties to point to the program directory and data directory.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Do0wv7jCwUftUUHoB-k9x7f6M30dJFyPgmRdQ0bPA7DRsJqfEMuZw5Nrbg7nJxmpbymcFwhfwabo9rXKao1AD2pPx3nz1eb5H7GZVeDAD1WFCPj9iEulXLZ6ZnEOEBVOSGnEyMytM04=w2400

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Those are entries for the registry. BOINC stores entries for its installation at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Space Sciences Laboratory, U.C. Berkeley\BOINC Setup
INSTALLDIR and DATADIR are entries at this registry key.
The INSTALLDIR stores the path to the Programs directory (default at C:\Program Files\BOINC\ or C:\Program Files (x86)\BOINC for either 64bit or 32bit versions)
The DATADIR entry stores the path to the data directory, where BOINC stores the project files and runs the calculations. Default at C:\Programdata\BOINC)

It stores further BOINC client and Manager preference settings (such as where BOINC Manager was last on screen, and at what size) in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Space Sciences Laboratory, U.C. Berkeley\BOINC Manager

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Those are entries for the registry. BOINC stores entries for its installation at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Space Sciences Laboratory, U.C. Berkeley\BOINC Setup
INSTALLDIR and DATADIR are entries at this registry key.
The INSTALLDIR stores the path to the Programs directory (default at C:\Program Files\BOINC\ or C:\Program Files (x86)\BOINC for either 64bit or 32bit versions)
The DATADIR entry stores the path to the data directory, where BOINC stores the project files and runs the calculations. Default at C:\Programdata\BOINC)

It stores further BOINC client and Manager preference settings (such as where BOINC Manager was last on screen, and at what size) in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Space Sciences Laboratory, U.C. Berkeley\BOINC Manager

Jord,

I was just following the wiki guide as provided above. It says modify the install and data directory under properties table in the Orca application.

However the fields are not present under the property table so cant amend them as per the guide.

Hmm now wondering if I can manual add them.

Can't believe there isn't a YouTube guide or or something with screenshots guiding the way.

Anything to help enroll more clients ( legality set aside)

I'll certainly consider creating something if I get it working before the end of the summer holidays.

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Can't believe there isn't a YouTube guide or or something with screenshots guiding the way.

There may have been, but any help sites for/about BOINC have a life expectancy of half a year to a year before the owners pull the plug. Outliers are the Wiki's BOINC set up themselves but that not everyone can edit due to spammers, and a handful of help sites. I maintain the BOINC FAQs website, but can tell you that's a hefty thing to do alone and with a wandering mindset.

Hmm now wondering if I can manual add them.

Ought to be possible.
E.g.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Space Sciences Laboratory, U.C. Berkeley\BOINC Setup]
"BOINC_MASTER_USERNAME"=""
"BOINC_PROJECT_USERNAME"=""
"DATADIR"="C:\\ProgramData\\BOINC\\"
"ENABLELAUNCHATLOGON"="1"
"ENABLEPROTECTEDAPPLICATIONEXECUTION2"="0"
"ENABLEPROTECTEDAPPLICATIONEXECUTION3"="0"
"ENABLESCREENSAVER"="0"
"ENABLEUSEBYALLUSERS"="0"
"INSTALLDIR"="C:\\Program Files\\BOINC\\"
"LAUNCHPROGRAM"="1"
"MIGRATION"="FALSE"
"MIGRATIONDIR"="C:\\Program Files\\BOINC\\"
"MIGRATIONVERSION"=""
"REBOOTPROMPT"=""
"RETURN_BOINC_MASTER_USERNAME"=""
"RETURN_BOINC_PROJECT_USERNAME"=""
"RETURN_REBOOTREQUESTED"="0"
"RETURN_VALIDATEINSTALL"="1"
"SETUPSTATESTORED"="TRUE"
"UpgradingTo"="7.14.2"

Save as BOINC_DIR.reg and run.
These are all the entries there are at the BOINC_Setup entry. Yes, the double backslashes are correct.

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Your simplest bet would probably be to take a single, stand-alone, windows computer and set up BOINC by itself from the Windows installer.

Then, examine the entrails of what has been left behind by the installer, and use it to build your group policy entries.

As Jord says, there will be two sets of registry entries, both with the root name of 'Space Sciences Laboratory, U.C. Berkeley'.

In HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, there will be the active locations for each of INSTALLDIR (program installation) and DATADIR (everything else).

In HKEY_CURRENT_USER, there will be options and current setting for, primarily, the Manager interface.