When a new client has been installed on a clean system the first time, the BOINC installer will instruct to reboot the system. This is to effectuate protected BOINC accounts limiting permissions for non-admin rights users by default, for their and the systems protection.

Occasionally this reboot is not done properly. Without delving into the permutations of why that keeps coming back, the root cause is a small file named RebootPending.txt that is not being deleted during the shutdown/reboot process, after which BOINC keeps asking for a system reboot.

When this happens, find the exact path of the client data_directory where BOINC stores the job related information. This path is printed in the BOINC Manager message log during start up. In example

03-02-2010 13:33:55 Data directory: C:\ProgramData\BOINC

Go there with your file explorer and delete the file [administrator permission necessary]. If you can't find the location, it is hidden. Then type the path into the file explorer's location box.

If not there, it could also be in the program folder of BOINC. Depending of bit version 32/64 bit and Windows release, the file would also be located in

C:\Program Files\BOINC
C:\Program Files (x86)\BOINC

After you've removed the file the problem should be solved, i.e. no new boot request messages.

Occasionally there's also the possibility of an error message in the event log:

Error: can't open file 'C:\Program Files\BOINC\\RebootPending.txt' (error 2: the system cannot find the file specified.)

Same action required.

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