Hi BeGodlike,
Yes, BOINC does not have a 'run as screensaver' option. However, if you want to play with the finicky details in the Device Profile, you can set it to run only after there has been no keyboard or mouse interaction for X minutes, which is a substitute. Unfortunately, this does put an icon in the tray. And the screen savers are not as pretty as the UD screen savers. So BOINC is not a straight replacement for UD.

Our problem is that we have never created our own grid manager. We have our hands full just running projects. We licensed the UD program and when that became obsolescent we adopted BOINC. In both cases, we have to adapt to the 'system'. But BOINC is under constant development, so you can make your preferred method of operation known to the developers. I expect the WCG staff will read your posts. You can also post a description of your needs on the message board at http://boinc.berkeley.edu/

Lawrence

...yes and most of us don't give a monkey's....you have been told how to overcome the 'problem' which most of us don't think is a problem....so either do it or stop whinging!

Hmmm.. LCD "burn-in"

Funny one... Gee.. If this was such a "problem" with LCD's, why don't I see all my system icons down the left of my screen? Or the task bar...

Heck I'm on this rig more than I'm off the thing. Don't run a screen save AT ALL, Power option is set to turn off the monitor only after 30min.. Well, I'm rarely away for longer than that...


You forget yourself.. MOST of us that left before they pulled the plug did so cause they couldn't keep their flaky database in working order and kept loosing the work we did. (That and the constant recrunching of the same job just so it would look like our rigs were doing "something"..)
Unlike UD, the crew here has an excellent track record of listening to our gripes/complaints and coming up with assistance to our problems. And very little downtime on the servers. If you want to knock someone, go find a different project to do it at.


From the IT standpoint service install is the way to go.. No icon, and it just works, and runs at such a low priority it's totally transparent to the user. A user can't mess with it! Like the taskbar icon, a screensaver is a simple thing for a user to change...

Or is the problem more that you don't have sufficient admin rights at work to install boinc as a service, And since the SS does cause "issues" you are being forced to remove it.

If the Boinc Screen Saver was that big a problem for people, then the boyos over to Berkley would have done something by now. Just because the Boinc user interface hasn't changed, doesn't mean nothings been tweaked/fixed/improved... Any IT worth half their paycheck knows that.

Also, Make sure this "border" you see isn't the backlight shining around the edges of the panel... (I got an 8 year old notebook that does that if I set the backlight too high) Slightly annoying at times.. Hmmm... No ghost images on that old dinosaur either..... Go figure....

From what I have learned the screen saver has nothing to do with BOINC. Some projects don't even have one.

BOINC's job is to control the projects you have attached to. From what I understand you can't run a project alone without some kind of program to control it. If you could you would not need BOINC. BOINC tells a project how long it gets to run. Sets how much of the Hard Drive can be used. When to call home to report completed task and request more work. Sets the time of day to use the network. All the above are items you set when you install or wish to make changes at any time. There are alot more you can set also.

When you install BOINC you are given some choices as to how you want it to run.

If you have other people using you PC's like family members you should install it as a service. (However, I could never get it to work until 6.X came out). You could also have each user have their own account. Running as a service let's it run if anyone is loged in or not.

BOINC 6.X will also let you remove the ICON from the tray and let's you set it so that only your user account can make changes to it.

Also, during the install for BOINC it asks if you want it as the default screen saver.

For more info check out the BOINC web site and maybe you can post your question to them and they can give you more on the workings of BOINC.


The only screen saver BOINC has is the one that tells you that it is idle. If a project does not have a screen saver you get the BOINC thingy with info on the WU that BOINC is running at that time.