Boinc install help/favor/question

[Exci]

Morning all,
You folks seem fairly versed in working with the various boinc flavors out there.

Back in the day, we did a network install to all our machines with the 4.43 client (recommended version at that time). It's ancient and doesn't display the graphics. Since the install was automated from the server, it's a real pain to uninstall or upgrade.

In fact, it won't go away. It errors out on uninstall or when trying to upgrade. When you can't get rid of something as a domain admin, or as the windows system account, it's pretty well entrenched.

I can, however, copy over the files in the directory.

Is upgrading to a 5x client as easy as replacing some files, or are there other system settings that go along with it?

If it is that easy, anyone know of a place I can get the extracted files? The .exe installer from the boinc site won't install anywhere on my machine, so I can't install it to a temp folder to get the files.

Thanks mucho,
Ethan

[Marky-UK]

To extract the files from the BOINC installer:

1) Launch the standard BOINC installer and let it get as far as the first screen ("Welcome to the InstallShield Wizard for BOINC").

2) Open a Command Prompt and navigate to your temp folder. On XP, this will be something like: C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Temp. On XP, the following command should get you there:


CD %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp

3) In the Temp folder, there will be a sub-folder with a name starting with _is (eg "_is1234"). In it will be a file called BOINC.msi. If you have multiple _is* folders, look in each of them in turn until you find the right one. Change directory to that folder, eg:


CD _is1234

4) Run the following command from the command line:


msiexec /a BOINC.msi

This will launch another installer. Do NOT exit the first one you started in step 1.

5) Click Next. Enter a path of where you want the files to be extracted to, then click Install again. The files will be extracted there.

6) Turn off the option to "Launch BOINC" then click Finish.

7) Now you can Cancel the installer you ran in step 1.

That's it! :)

[Exci]

That worked like a charm. .thanks for the quick and detailed response. That's a cool trick to know :)

Unfortunately, I still can't see the graphics. My guess is it has something to do with our domain settings. .

I can kick off the boinc.scr, but all I get is the generic boinc logo with the status of the two work units. Hitting the 'show graphics' button just causes the button to grey out after a few seconds.

I guess I'll have to actually work on my work computer :)

Cheers,
Ethan