Jim,

I just uninstalled and reinstalled the agent on my computer (downloaded it from the web). I didn't have the Install Error that you got... I'm running WXP, SP2 I think... Not sure that it would make a difference, though.

I'll check with our other tech when he returns on Monday. In the mean time, I've got a lot of crunching to make up since I got rid of the WU I'd been crunching when I uninstalled.

Nels

Run md5sum on your downloaded file and see if it matches the value shown on page http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/join_now/join_now.html . If you don't already have the md5sum program, the page has a link to it. If it does not match, then the file has been altered somewhere along the way. Viruses do this kind of thing, so scan your machine for viruses. Otherwise, there may have been a communication error, or perhaps bad sectors on the hard drive.

If you are running Windows XP with SP2, on certain machines, DEP can cause problems. See the Known Issues forum entry "Another reason for a paused agent": http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread?thread=1297

I'm getting this exact same error. The MD5 checksum of the downloaded file does not match that posted on the download page (66902ebd071ce0979bc69fd78134b44f). Having cleared my cache and redownloaded several times using both IE and Firefox, I consistently get an MD5 of 1a3b187e96ebcb3a7d071ee4d1405729.

Is there the tiniest chance that the server copy is corrupt?

Steve.

Not sure I follow (assuming the previous note was in response to mine)... the downloaded file does not have the correct MD5.

If you're suggesting a virus could be causing the corruption at my end, I think this is extremely unlikely. I run regular virus scans, have at least two firewalls (personal and corporate) in place.

This file is the only one of many that I've have downloaded recently that is giving me problems.

Steve.

steverus,
I downloaded md5summer.exe and downloaded WorldCommunityGridAgent.exe. Running md5summer gave me that long check value beginning with 66. You are in an unlikely and unusual situation. [Ominous music in background]

Good Luck,
Lawrence

Added: I have been looking into this. MD5 checksums have become more popular lately with BitTorrent and various P2P sites downloading so many files. There are a lot of advisories urging people to use MD5 to check their downloads against a list containing the official MD5 checksum for their download.

The World Community Grid staff have been keeping track of this. There have been several cases in which viruses on a member's computer interfered with the agent. But a second possibility has turned out to be more common. There are caching systems to maintain local copies of downloads and for some reason bugs are sometimes causing a corrupted version of the WCG installation program to be stored in these caches. This 'Not A Valid Win32 Application" is diagnostic of this problem. So it is not a virus, though MD5 can be used to catch that as well.

[Grin] This reminds me of Christopher Anvil's Stellar Scouts science fiction stories. On each return to base their equipment would be upgraded to newer and better everything. Then the rest of the story would be about the adventure of exploring the galaxy while coping with constant surprises caused by bugs in the new equipment. The new local cache systems are giving us some surprises.