I am running a very long-running project (ClimatePrediction) BOINC project on a computer that I will soon wipe and I don't want to lose the progress. I have another computer running BOINC already available that I would like to move the state of the computation to and run from.

Both systems are 32-bit windows - one XP, one Vista. Both are running the 6.2.18 client. I tried copying the folder within 'projects' and manually editing the client_state.xml file, but it didn't work.

Does anyone have any insight into this problem?
Thanks much.

I've done this plenty of times with BOINC v5. Your BOINC v6.2.18 will be more difficult, but should be possible.

You will need to move the whole BOINC data folder tree. Have a look at the BOINC v6 FAQ for where to find it.

You will need to perform a 'clean' installation of BOINC on the new machine - i.e. install it normally, but don't attach to any projects. (Or allow any work you're currently doing to finish and report - you can re-attach to other projects later). Then, empty out the contents of the data directory you've just created on the new machine (but see *), and replace it with the entire contents of the data directory from the old machine - all the .xml and suchlike files from the folder, plus the projects, slots and any other subfolders.

* One possible exception is the password file. I don't know enough about the security model of BOINC v6 to know whether you'll need this to match the accounts BOINC will run under on the new machine. Perhaps best to keep a copy just in case, or maybe Jord or someone else can tell us.

Provided you can get BOINC to actually run on the new machine, you should have no problem reporting the work as normal. @ Dagorath: if you transfer the whole folder, you're also transferring the machine's "identity" - its Host ID - so the work will still be appearing to be coming from the same host. But @ccarson - that means that you do have to 'retire' the old machine - you can't have two computers attached to the same project with the same host ID.

If you really want to copy just the single long-running CPDN model from the old machine, and merge it into a BOINC installation that's already running other projects (but not CPDN, because of the host ID problem), then it should be possible - there's a very long and detailled CPDN ReadMe - but I wouldn't advise it.

* One possible exception is the password file.

Copy over the client_auth.xml file from the new data directory to the backup, or if you put the backup back, make sure you do NOT overwrite this file with the old one.

This file will only be there if you used the protected mode install on Windows XP and above (so Windows 2000 with a protected or service install does not have this file!).

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Hi everyone

Ccarson, you only seem concerned about your CPDN climate model. The CPDN servers do in fact allow you to start a model on one computer and finish it on another. Both should have the same OS eg both should have a version of Windows.

If I was moving a climate model running on BOINC6 to another computer, I would first reinstall BOINC 5.10.45. I'd set all projects to No New Work, finish all non-CPDN tasks and make sure they report. This would leave only the model to be moved.

If the destination computer is already busy with BOINC project tasks, I'd complete them all. If there's already another long climate model there, I'd keep the BOINC folder to be moved somewhere safe until the destination computer has no work left. (It wouldn't matter if the model is moved onto the new computer 3 or 6 months later - the CPDN server would still accept its uploads.) If the destination computer has BOINC6 I'd also revert it to 5.10.45.

I'd then move the complete contents of the BOINC5 folder using Les's model-moving instructions for BOINC5 which have been tried and tested.

You could then just

* back up the complete contents of the BOINC folder onto something the destination computer can see

* delete the complete contents of the BOINC folder on the destination computer

* restore the backup to the destination BOINC folder

* reinstall BOINC 5.10.45

* when that's up and running successfully, upgrade the destination computer to BOINC6.

The BOINC5 backup and restore methods here have been tried and tested with climate models thousands of times.

If the destination computer is much faster than the old one, you'll need to tell us about that soon after moving the model because in that case we would need to tell you about an extra step to take to keep the model safe.