I noticed that as well. I'm actually going to test copying the data files to another box to see if that helps. I don't want to touch a bunch of machines either.

I wonder if it is obfuscated to prevent folks from building trojans to put all over the net or something, like some did with RC5.

I doubt it's anything that sneaky. I think it's just that the program being used was adapted from it's original purpose, so we're stuck with it's rather limited feature-set. They are working on extending that feature-set, but apparently it's a fairly complex process, as the software was not written in a modular, easy-to-extend manner, so the process of change is slow.

I apologize in advance for not providing any help but rather tagging on to your subject.

I would really like to have a "how-to" or "Tutorial" on how to do what you are talking about.

That is, install the agent in such a way that it runs all the time regarless if anyone is logged on as administrator or user or whatever...just run all the time. I really do not care if the icon shows or not but would not want the screen saver to run.

If anyone has one of these, I would love to see it. If anyone wants to coach me through it via email, I will, at the end of it, write the Tutorial and make it available to everyone.

Thanks in advance to all. Regards.

OK, did a lot of research today, but unfortunately wasn't able to solve the problem. I'm close, however.

All preference information, including logon information, the machine ID, and preferences like running as a screen saver or not is stored in the CS.UD file in the WorldCommunityGrid directory. This file apparently stores it's data as XML, but the file is compressed and/or encrypted, thus you can't see the settings. This file constantly changes as UD.EXE does it's job, indicating it stores state information like the current work unit progress, etc.

I was also able to determine that there is some type of automated installation mechanism supported by the UD client. If you install WCG and pause at the "Installer has finished installing WCG on your computer", and look in the WorldCommunityGrid folder, there are only 3 files in there: UD.EXE, UDAGENT.HLP, and INIT.UD. The INIT.UD file is the key. It contains the following:

<settings>
use_proxy=0
referred=xxxx
auto_register=0
run_as_screensaver=0
connection_type=8
</settings>

(The "referred" parameter is a 4 digit number. I replaced it with x's because I believe it's machine-specific).

I figured that there should be some options that could be placed in this file which would allow an automated installation of the UD agent. To find out what they should be, I unpacked the UD.EXE executable and took it apart with a PE disassembler. The packing is an unknown format, and no ordinary PE explorer could find out what was going on. I eventually looked at the modules that were loaded into memory while it was running, and searched for the strings that would parse the INIT.UD file.

There are apparently MANY options that can be used here, I found them in the code. Here are the ones that might be relevant:

username=xxxx
password=xxxx
hostname=xxxx
auto_register=1

Under a normal 1st-time start of UD.EXE, the INIT.UD file is read and parsed, then deleted. Then UD.EXE creates UDTAPI.DLL in its own directory. Then the CS.UD file is created containing basic default options, and then the logon dialog is presented. When that is filled out, CS.UD is updated, and UD.EXE proceeds to download the 1st work unit.

When I tried the above parameters in the INIT.UD file (in many various conbinations, variations, and orders), UD.EXE started up, parsed the INIT.UD file, deleted it, created UDTAPI.DLL and CS.UD, and then hung. It wouldn't download a work unit and didn't appear to be doing anything, although the UD.EXE process was still running. Apparently there is at least one parameter I'm missing out of the INIT.UD file that needs to be there, or there are some additional XML tags that need to be present other than <setttings></settings>, or the parameters have to be in some unknown order.

If the programmers would be so kind as to throw us a bone with a bit of documentation on the INIT.UD file options, a .VBS or .BAT file can easily be written to do remote unattended installations as a service, and I'll be more than happy to post the scripts and instructions.