I have been running SETI@Home since 1998 and once again I am having troubles getting the most recent version to install. I keep getting asked during installation to specify the path to the .msi file which already is and it says it is corrupt and cannot continue. I have tried downloading it again at least a dozen times and restarting my computer to no avail. however every time my computer sits ideal for a while the BIONC screen saver comes up and says nothing is running. What needs to be done to fix this. It is a windows 7 pro x64 machine. Prior to trying to update I was running 6.12.34

It's Windows which forgets where it put the .msi file that the installer uses to uninstall the old BOINC version with. You can easily fix this by repair installing 6.12.34

Download the 6.12.34 installer from http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download_all.php, make sure you use the correct version, 32bit or 64bit.
- Acknowledge to Windows you want to start the installer.
- On the first screen of the installer click Next.
- On the Program Maintenance screen, check the radio button for "Repair", then click Next.
Run through the rest of the installation to repair 6.12.34


After that's done, download the installer for 7.0.27 as it's better to upgrade to the latest version available, boinc_7.0.27_windows_intelx86.exe (32bit) or boinc_7.0.27_windows_x86_64.exe (64bit), this one has a lot of user-found bugs fixed.
Then just install over 6.12.34 and you should be golden.

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Thanks, however this did not work. The installation starts as though it is a new installation and I never get a prompt to do a repair. What would be the next things to try ?

If you never get a prompt to repair, this points in the direction of you using a different installer than last time, therefore, I did say watch out for 32bit or 64bit.

Under 64bit Windows, 64bit programs install to the C:\Program Files\ directory. 32bit programs will install to the C:\Program Files (x86)\ directory. So if you had a 6.12.34 that was a 32bit version and now you're installing a 64bit version, it'll install to a different location. It will in this case ignore the old 32bit location in the registry, as 64bit programs are not allowed to install to the 32bit program Files directory! (A thing Windows dictates).

So check in C:\Program Files\ if there's a BOINC directory there and if so, which version boinc.exe it has (right click on it, properties, Details.
If there's no BOINC directory here, then check if there's on in the C:|Program Files (x86)\ directory, and check the version number of boinc.exe (same way).

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I have always specified a different drive location and install it to D:\BOINC

It finds the registry specified paths of D:\BOINC\ and D:\BOINC\DATA but fails when the installation begins because it cannot find the network resource C:\Windows\Downloaded Installations\{CB810A15-3AB3-4226-8A2F-CB486178CD68}\BOINC.msi even though it is there.

Well, in that case, use the Windows Installer Clean Up Tool. See this FAQ for more information.

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After going through everything in those suggestions twice in that link I still receive errors and now get Error 2718. Missing package name for product code ...

what are the next steps ???

oh and that link for the MSI uninstaller is a horrible link and once I finally did find the download it didn't do anything after I installed it. I could not find the exe file so assume the program runs on install ??

After going through everything in those suggestions twice in that link I still receive errors and now get Error 2718. Missing package name for product code ...

what are the next steps ???

I did a search on the internet. This seems to be a problem with the Windows Installer (who'd have guessed that?), and the fix is to use the Windows Installer Clean Up tool. (again, who'd have guessed that?)

Mind, if you do a search on this error, you'll find a lot of advice to repair the registry. If you have a good free registry repair application (there's really good free ones out there, so really no need to spend tens to hundreds of dollars/pounds/euros on one), you can use that to fix the problem as well. But otherwise, just use the Windows Installer Clean Up tool, which essentially does the same thing, it removes the offending corrupt path out of the registry.

oh and that link for the MSI uninstaller is a horrible link and once I finally did find the download it didn't do anything after I installed it. I could not find the exe file so assume the program runs on install ??

??? Of course it doesn't run automatically. It's a program, you should start it.
I installed it and here it shows at the top of Start->All Programs. But otherwise, do Start->type Windows Install in the search option and presto, it'll show the shortcut to the executable.

You can easily find any program this way, as long as you know its name, which in this case you did...

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It never showed up in the All Programs feature and I didn't know the name of it so that is why I asked. However typing in Windows Install brought it up right away and found the offend version 6.12.34 and removed it. Installed 7.0.27 and it installed first try with out doing a restart after cleanup too.

Thanks for the help, back up and running now.