Whilst I realise this may not be of any help at all and probably too simplistic I'll outline the steps I took to get Boinc running in dual boot. Whilst I did this for Vista and 7 the principle should be the same.

1. Stop Boinc and check that the science apps have stopped running. If neccessary check in the task manager.

2. Locate data folder for Boinc. For me this was C:\ProgramData\Boinc (you will probably have to enable 'show hidden files' which can be done through help, the control panel or in XP through the Tools menu: Tools -> folder options -> view)

3. Make a copy of this folder. As has been mentioned earlier you will need to place it in a drive or partition that both operating systems can see. In my instance my Beta 7 installation couldn't see the HDD with Vista installed on so I used a 3rd drive that was visible to both i.e. E:\Boinc

4. This is probably where the CA's will wash their hands of me. At this time you can either a) uninstall your old boinc installation (yes I know you can change the config files but it was too much hassle for me and didn't work when I tried it) or b) download the newest version of Boinc from http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php and run the install (which will overwrite existing config files etc)
As pictured by Didactylos, choose the advanced options during the install process and set the data directory to wherever you copied your Boinc data folder to. For me this was E:\Boinc

5. After the install is complete Boinc should run as normal on o.s. #1. If you followed step b you should see a message in the boinc manager detailing the version change. Your original Boinc data folder (by default located at C:\ProgramData\Boinc) is now obsolete but don't get rid of it just yet.

6. Boot into o.s. #2. Go to http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php and download Boinc. Install using the advanced options again and specify where your data folder is located. As you are in a different o.s. your drive letters may have been moved around. In my case seeing as my 7 installation couldn't see my vista HDD my boinc data folder was now located on D:\Boinc

7. After install run Boinc. After running benchmarks it should start the tasks from where they stopped in o.s. #1. You might see a line in the messages tab that indicates Boinc has detected an o.s. change but other than that you shouldn't have any problems...in theory.

I apologise if this is too simplistic for you but I'm just outlining the steps that worked for me. Hope this is of some help.

VulcanTourist, you can learn from this experience.

1) First, provide all the relevant information. Using BOINC 5.10 is highly relevant.

2) Don't ask questions in a hostile manner. No doubt you believe your request was perfectly reasonable and polite. It does not read that way.

3) Don't ask a question and then vanish for a month. Had you spend a little time to ask some follow up questions and tell us about any early problems you encountered, you could have saved a considerable amount of time.

Your problem was not bizarre, esoteric or even surprising. What you fail to take into account is that no FAQ can cover every possible scenario, and a simple question at the right time would have solved your problems. All your massive posts demanding an easy answer are just a complete waste of your time. You spent more time writing them than you ever would have working with us to fix the actual problem.

Well, I did for a short time run v5.10.45 as dual-boot between win2003 and vista... But I've never run v6 as dual-boot, for obvious reasons, since v6 doesn't work in win2003.

The "easier" setup is very likely v5, since it's less chance of running into any access-right-problems, but it can still happen. This should be more or less like this:

1; In OS-#1, install BOINC v5.10.45 to example d:\boinc , making sure the BOINC-directory is on a non-OS-partition for both OS.
2; Suspend network in BOINC-Manager.
3; Stop BOINC, and make a backup-copy.
4; In OS-#2, make sure it's the same d-disk, and also install BOINC-v5.10.45 to same as in #1.
5; If it runs correctly, go back to OS-#1 and make sure if it works here also.
6; If it works in both, you can enable network.
7; If it doesn't work in either OS, you'll maybe need to re-store the backup.
After restoring the backup, and before you starts BOINC again,, open-up a cmd-window (someone likes to call it a dos-prompt).

Type: (with enter or return after each line)

d:
cd \
cacls boinc /e /t /g everyone:f

Various lines will flash-through in the window, until finished.
8; Try to run BOINC now in both OS, and hopefully it now works, and you can enable network-connection again.


For v6, the method is a little different, but it should be something like this:

1; Do NOT use v6.2.xx , there's a known bug in v6.2.xx that screws-up access-rights and gives you problems. You'll need to use v6.6.xx or later.
2; YOU MUST SELECT "Allow all users on this computer to manage BOINC". Please note, the accounts BOINC makes is non-standard, and under a different OS these will show up as "Unknown-something", and you won't have the neccessary access-rights.
3; In OS-#1, install BOINC v6.6.xx with example d:\boinc as data-directory, making sure the data-directory is on a non-OS-partition for both OS. The program-directory can be left at default "c:\program files\boinc"
4; Suspend network in BOINC-Manager, possibly after you've re-booted back to same OS.
5; Stop BOINC, and make a backup-copy.
6; In OS-#2, make sure it's the same d-disk, and install BOINC-v6.6.xx so uses same data-directory as in #3. Program-directory can be left at "c:\program files\boinc"
7; If it runs correctly, go back to OS-#1 and make sure if it works here also.
8; If it works in both, you can enable network.
9; If it doesn't work, you'll likely need to re-store backup-copy, make sure BOINC isn't running, opening-up a cmd-prompt and type:

d:
cd \
cacls boinc /e /t /g everyone:f

Various lines will flash-through in the window, until finished.
10; Try to run BOINC now in both OS, and hopefully it now works, and you can enable network-connection again.


For both v5 and v6, I'll highly recommend to use a non-OS-partition for the BOINC (data)-directory, especially since both Vista and Win7 has a tendency to hide one or more disk-partitions, and the access-rights will be changed on the disk you installs the OS.

For anyone trying this, please report any success or failures.

Very few users will try a dual-boot approach anyway, so not being recommended isn't really a problem. For the few users that's interested in trying on the other hand, my method will atleast have fairly good odds of working, and if it really doesn't work, you'll have a working backup.


Then it comes to dual-boot-installs, the only "nail" is access-rights, as long as you're using the exact same BOINC-clients on both OS. Using a "hammer" that is "known to not correctly set access-rights" doesn't look like a good choise to me in this scenario then another "hammer" that is "known to correctly set access-rights" is available...

So, to minimize the chance of problems, I'm recommending to use the "correct hammer" for this particular type of "nail".



For multi-project-users, downgrading BOINC-client can be dangerous since it can trash lots of work, and often isn't an option anyway. Since it's really no good way to know if WCG-users runs multiple projects, and often a search on BoincStats doesn't show any user at all due to WCG-forum-name can be different than account crunches under, to be on the safe side I'm treating all users as multi-project-users.

Even if single-project-users, and they're posted the log showing this, in most instances downgrading doesn't help anyway. Appart for CUDA-related bugs and bugs already present in older BOINC-clients, I'm not aware of any bugs in v6.6.xx-clients. Well, you do have the two "policy-changes" of "only display run-time" and "multiply #cpu with 'write to disk about ever n seconds'".

Do you know any other bugs in v6.6.36? If so, please report them to either the BOINC bug-database, or to the BOINC alpha-email-list (or possibly the dev-email-list).


Changing access-rights is only neccessary if the major steps (#1-#6 for v5 and #1-#8 for v6) doesn't work. For anyone that really wants to get dual-boot to work correctly, I did include it. If any user doesn't know about access-rights, they shouldn't try dual-booting anyway.


BTW, you're claiming I'm always recommending users to run "unsupported" BOINC-clients... Do you have any proof of this?

AFAIK the only times I've recommended any BOINC-clients are:
1; To use v5.10.45 for win2000/win2003/win2008-DC-users. For these, v6 doesn't work at all, so there aren't any other option.
2; To users that is running multiple projects I've recommended to keep their current version, or to someone that knew used CUDA to upgrade from v6.4.x.
3; Well, I did recommend Sekerob to upgrade from his current v6.6.2x-alpha-build to a later one...
4; AFAIK once I posted something along the lines of "if doing such and such also doesn't work with v6.2.28, you'll likely hit that particular bug that's fixed in a later client, so should try a later client afterwards if v6.2.28 still doesn't work..."

Ah, I did post a recommendation back in April:
For anyone running v6.2.xx or v5.10.45, there aren't really any good reasons to upgrade at this point, except if you've got a CUDA-capable card you wants to use...

I'll gladly make the same recommendation to-day, with a couple slight changes:
For anyone running v6.2.xx or v5.10.45 without any serious problems, there aren't really any good reasons to upgrade at this point, except if you've got a CUDA-capable card you wants to use, or wants to run the SMP-application of Aqua.

Can with no difficulty also add:
For anyone running v6.6.xx without any serious problems, there aren't really any good reasons to downgrade at this point.
For multi-project-users, downgrading can in many instances screw-up things, and some projects doesn't even work with older BOINC-clients. For these reasons, downgrading is not recommended for multi-project-users.

dkt, Ingleside is not representing the official view. He is just any other member, and I strongly disagree with his claim.

BOINC 6.2.28 is the officially supported Windows version. There is no confusion or ambiguity - the official version is the version you can download here: http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/reg/ms/viewDownloadAgain.do

From time to time, Berkeley may recommend other versions. These versions have not been tested and approved by World Community Grid. You use them at your own risk. Berkeley "recommends" a new version every other week - we do not consider them stable or properly tested.

If you install BOINC 6.2.28 and have the correct cc_config.xml file, then BOINC Manager will only inform you about World Community Grid recommended releases, instead of nagging you every time Berkeley find yet another bug.