I appreciate the work done creating this application but whoever wrote it never learned how to write a proper uninstall process.

For numerous reasons I have had to uninstall this software lately and it is virtually *impossible* to get a clean uninstall.

Why was it written like this? Uninstall means uninstall. It doesnt mean "leave half the information there and if the person reinstalls, reincorporate all the old information".

I need a fresh uninstall. On Windows Vista and XP it took me an hour of Googling to figure out how to do it. Now I need a clean uninstall on Windows 7 and none of those tricks is working.

I quite honestly am tired of spending half my day just trying to get this program off my computer. Can someone please point me to the exhaustively long instructions for fully wiping BOINC off a Windows 7 machine?

And can someone else please contact the programmers and tell them to fix this issue ? There are years upon years of google results of people complaining about this and endless pages of confusing, erroneous instructions all over the place.

As a side note, I have followed all these steps already in Windows 7 , and when I reinstalled the software, all the old information remained:

1) Deleted the "hidden" Boinc/ data directory
2) Searched entire computer for BOINC.msi and deleted the files
3) Went into registry and deleted: KEY USERS / SOFTWARE / Space Sciences
4) Went into registry and deleted: KEY MACHINE / SOFTWWARE / Space Sciences
5) Searched Registry for BOINC.msi and none were found

Emptied recycle bin.

Reinstalled software. All original work units still there, partially completed began running again, project was already there, and user was already logged in.

Help ....

All original work units still there, partially completed began running again, project was already there, and user was already logged in.

Since those items are kept in the BOINC data directory, that's impossible if you really did step 1) Deleted the "hidden" Boinc/ data directory. (The "correct" BOINC data directory is listed in the startup messages in the BOINC event log.)

Gruß,
Gundolf

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Computer sind nicht alles im Leben. (Kleiner Scherz)

I'll give it another look. But my request still stands. It shouldn't require surgery to uninstall this program and everything associated with it. If anything, it should be a checkbox on a dialogue popup.

Why do I have to keep uninstalling? Well first off I had a very old account on these old laptops and I wanted to start a new account and new team, as well as scrap the old work from the old projects. I couldn't. Nothing I did made any difference. It kept loading me into the same account and working on the same projects.

Then, once I figured out how to delete the program off a couple laptops, I reinstalled, and later decided I wanted to make a "team" for the new account. In doing so, the new installations had no buttons for viewing team stats or anything. So i realized I needed to uninstall yet again and reinstall, then log in with the account which now was associated with a "team" and maybe then id get the proper buttons. But I couldn't.

The whole thing just needs a usability makeover.

The developers are busy adding an option to the installer that gives the user the option to either uninstall BOINC its programs only, in order to do an upgrade installation of BOINC, or to uninstall everything, including programs directory, data directory and any undone and unreported work, registry entries and limited user accounts and groups made.

For this they have removed the Uninstalling instructions from the Wiki, after a complaint by someone else that he couldn't follow those steps, as they were confusing him (although he said it in a less friendly and eloquently manner).

If however you feel less easily confused, these steps are still here in this FAQ.

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Thank you. And, as it turns out, apparently the "TEAM" buttons for statistics only transiently appeared and only on the computer where i happened to set up the team. This is very confusing. How do I have the proper team stat buttons on all four computers? The software simply does not have them.

Yet one did. But on that machine I upgraded to Windows 7 today and reinstalled boinc. I assumed when I entered my account information it would know I was part of a team and the software would include those buttons. But it doesnt.

BOINCBurger,

by the way, if you need to uninstall BOINC right now and can't wait for the update, i suggest using Revo uninstaller, there is a free version on there website, just google it. Basicly what Revo uninstaller does is it deletes almost everything related to the installtion. I always use it to uninstall something, don't know if BOINC instllations are always completely deleted but it normaly should