Yesterday I successfully upgraded my C2D from BOINC v.5 to 6.2.19. The computer has been rebooted and the tasks are running fine. It's installed not as a service, though I can't remember seeing the protected/unprotected option in the install wizard.

However, each time I exit from BOINC then restart it, the Attach to Project wizard dialog box appears. It says it's 'communicating with project' but doesn't say which project. I then have to say whether I'm a new or existing user and give my email address and password before I can get into BOINC.

I haven't attached to any new project on this computer for months and I don't know whether BOINC or a project is generating this Attach dialog box.

The computer's attached to

BBC
SAP
CPDN
CPDN Beta (If any of the CPDN projects was generating the dialog I think I'd probably know about it)
Test
Proteins
RieselSieve
QMC
APS

Any idea why the Attach to Project dialog box appears and what I can do to stop it appearing?

Try canceling the wizard next time around, then check which project you are not attached to.
Or check your messages, as it should show which project you attached to.

Do check the messages anyway, see what user you run as. This sounds like a permissions problem, as if one or more of the .xml files in the data directory cannot be written to with the user you run as.

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The problem seems in fact to be CPDN Beta which the computer has two tasks for. But it also has a task for CPDN and there's no message about that project.

30/11/2008 12:22:44||Fetching configuration file from http://bbc.cpdn.org/beta/get_project_config.php

The computer's running BOINC under my own account name. There's no boinc_master account name on this computer.

A reboot has immediately (before opening BOINC Manager) produced a different window from BOINC Manager telling me that the url I supplied isn't that of a boinc-based project. But I hadn't supplied any url or attached to a project. Cancelling these pop-up windows seems to do no harm; BM then opens up and the tasks run fine, but again there's a BOINC message

30/11/2008 18:11:19||Fetching configuration file from http://bbc.cpdn.org/beta/get_project_config.php

I think I'll uninstall this BOINC and install the same version again. This should be quicker than diagnosing the problem.

A reinstall has produced the same thing again. The moment BOINC started up, there was a BOINC Manager popup window asking 'Are you already running this project?'. The same CPDN Beta configuration file has been fetched yet again. Again, BOINC isn't installed as a service, it's running under my name and there's no boinc_master account.

This must be because of how I've installed BOINC. Both times I used the install defaults, always just clicking Next. I thought the defaults would produce a service install but they haven't. I don't really know what they've produced.

In the install wizard choices or configuration screen (#3 window here) the 3 options were all greyed out as in the picture and I clicked Next. So I didn't choose the screensaver installation, I didn't choose the protected installation and I didn't choose to let all users of the computer control BOINC. So what sort of installation have I got?

I'm pretty sure that if I reinstall BOINC and go into the Advanced Customized Options, I'll get a correct installation, whichever option I choose. But I'm curious to know what the default installation that I chose consists of, and why it hasn't worked properly.

Yes, the buttons ARE greyed out on the first screen that's displayed, because those options can only be changed on the Advanced screen.
As it is, the default (at least in 6.2.18, which is unlikely to have chnged in 6.2.19), will be service install.
This can be checked by looking at the Messages tab, near the start. It will say something about running as a daemon. (A Unix/Linux word; Service in Windows.)

That's what I thought too. But when I exit from BOINC just using the icon's Exit option, the tasks stop running; I checked this in Task Manager to see what sort of installation I'd got. And it isn't running as a daemon:

30/11/2008 18:36:22||Starting BOINC client version 6.2.19 for windows_intelx86
30/11/2008 18:36:22||log flags: task, file_xfer, sched_ops
30/11/2008 18:36:22||Libraries: libcurl/7.18.0 OpenSSL/0.9.8e zlib/1.2.3
30/11/2008 18:36:22||Data directory: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\BOINC
30/11/2008 18:36:22||Running under account movistar
30/11/2008 18:36:22||Processor: 2 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6600 @ 2.40GHz [x86 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 6]
30/11/2008 18:36:22||Processor features: fpu tsc pae nx sse sse2 mmx
30/11/2008 18:36:22||OS: Microsoft Windows XP: Professional x86 Editon, Service Pack 3, (05.01.2600.00)

Very strange. This doesn't look like what I/we have been telling people.

...As it is, the default (at least in 6.2.18, which is unlikely to have changed in 6.2.19), will be service install.

I believe that the default is to install the way the previous install went. But I'm not sure if that's also the case with major release changes (5.x -> 6.x).

Gruß,
Gundolf

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Computer sind nicht alles im Leben. (Kleiner Scherz)

That's interesting and could be true in this case. But when the previous installation's been uninstalled, as was the case here, how does the new version of BOINC know how the previous version was installed? Perhaps the BOINC server keeps a record of every installation on every computer.

...Perhaps the BOINC server keeps a record of every installation on every computer.

Probably not of every installation, but of the last one. The registry would be my canditate of choice for windows; for unix, I don't know.

The info about an installation IS saved in the registry, for use if the user decides to change to a different install option later.

But Mo said in the first post that the install was an upgrade from 5.*, so the registry should NOT have saved anything about a non-service install until such time as the options in Advanced were used. And "reading between the lines", this wasn't done.