Please post in this thread when you experience migration trouble, where BOINC's installer did not migrate the your old work to the new separate data directory.

Please post which Windows this happens on. Also post what installation options you used (protected install, unprotected install, all users can control BOINC or not)

When you do see the Attach to wizard pop-up, cancel it and uninstall BOINC 6. Reinstalling it will fix this problem in 90% of the cases.

With thanks.

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Please post in this thread when you experience migration trouble, where BOINC's installer did not migrate the your old work to the new separate data directory.

Please post which Windows this happens on. Also post what installation options you used (protected install, unprotected install, all users can control BOINC or not)

When you do see the Attach to wizard pop-up, cancel it and uninstall BOINC 6. Reinstalling it will fix this problem in 90% of the cases.

With thanks.

I've had this problem on two different clients now.

The first client is a Laptop running WindowsXP SP2, installed unprotected, all users can control. I have local admin rights on the laptop, but no domain admin rights. I had to reattach my projects and lost all my curretly running work.

The 2nd client is a Server running Windows 2003 SP1, installed protected, all users can control unchecked. I have full admin rights to this machine. It's in a workgroup. I tried to remove and reinstall, but it still didn't grab my projects.

Both clients run SETI and World Computing Grid.

Can you please add which 6.2 version this was with?

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Can you please add which 6.2 version this was with?

boinc_6.2.16_windows_intelx86

Also, I have three more clients, one XP and two 2003 SP1, that I need to update so if there's anything you want me to try let me know and I can try it on them.

You're not the only one with the problem, there are more people. It even happened to me on one system. I've compiled a small list of people who posted it to different forums and sent it off to the developer in charge. He has already told me he is busy with it, I will keep you informed.

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Also, I have three more clients, one XP and two 2003 SP1, that I need to update so if there's anything you want me to try let me know and I can try it on them.

a) could you please use BOINC 6.2.17 (32bit version)
b) Install with the log option on. This will make a log of everything that the installer does, it should pick up if the migration is said to go all right or not.
Before you do so, move the installer file to your C:\ root (for ease).
To use the log option, open a command line window (Start->Run, type cmd and click OK.
In the window, type cd\ and hit Enter.
Now type (or copy this): boinc_6.2.17_windows_intelx86.exe /v"/l*vx e:\boincsetup.log" (if you use an older version, please make sure to change the version number in the command). Hit Enter.
Install BOINC as you would normally do. You won't notice anything of the log.
Now hopefully it'll go wrong again. If it does, navigate to your C:\ root directory in Windows, zip up the boincsetup.log file and email it to Rom Walton at romw at romwnet dot org

Explain in the email which installation options you used (so note them down) and what else you have done. He'll take it from there.

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...
Now type (or copy this): boinc_6.2.17_windows_intelx86.exe /v"/l*vx e:\boincsetup.log" (if you use an older version, please make sure to change the version number in the command). Hit Enter...

I think it should read

boinc_6.2.17_windows_intelx86.exe /v"/l*vx [b]c[/b]:\boincsetup.log"

or

If it does, navigate to your [b]E[/b]:\ root directory

:-)

...
Now type (or copy this): boinc_6.2.17_windows_intelx86.exe /v"/l*vx e:\boincsetup.log" (if you use an older version, please make sure to change the version number in the command). Hit Enter...

I think it should read

boinc_6.2.17_windows_intelx86.exe /v"/l*vx [b]c[/b]:\boincsetup.log"

Yes, sorry, that's correct. c:\ not e:\

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I had no problems upgrading from 6.2.14 to 6.2.18 (WinXP 32) although the process was a little bit annoying.

Why?
Some times ago I upgraded from 5.10.45 (? I forgot...) to 6.2.14 and got the data (of climaprediction = 1,9GB) moved from the programm directory to the user data directory. It took quite some time.

When I upgraded from 6.2.14 to 6.2.18 I uninstalled .14 first, which moved all the data back from the user data to the programm folder.
Installing 6.2.18 moved it again to the user data folder.

I think, there should be either an option in "Uninstall" to skip that step or the readme should say, that you can safely upgrade over an installed Boinc version. (I was not able to find such a note...)

BTW: Upgrading from v5 to v6 did not reuse the options of v5. Boinc started to use 100% of a dualcore CPU (=2) and not 1 of 2 available CPUs, as configured in v5.

Anyway, impressive program.
Regards, Edgar

I think, there should be either an option in "Uninstall" to skip that step or the readme should say, that you can safely upgrade over an installed Boinc version. (I was not able to find such a note...)

I'll add it to the FAQs on BOINC 6. You have a point, I never put it anywhere as I assumed it was common knowledge that you don't need to uninstall BOINC first before installing the next one. Sorry, an oversight on my side.

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ou ou ou, big trouble hehe
i have 4 computers running boinc client. 2 of them had an astropulse WU. one with 99,5% astropulse the other computed to 40%.
after upgrading to the new boinc client in different ways, it was never possible to import the old WUs.
guys, thats bad programming !
i think it doesn´t matter which OS or computer hardware is installed.
i was a bit angry about the 2 weeks i have computed an astropulse wu, which was lost.

on the other clients i copied my old WUs to the new location (where the new boinc wanted) and boinc overwritten it. and why boinc deletes the config file ? or the registry-entries with informations about the WUs.
14 days computing energy for nothing is 2 much.

so, next time, take a closer look to the upgrade procedure, please.

p.s. i tried different ways, with protected an without protected install. for me or for all users. i copied active WUs over the data-directory, nothing of that was working.

i think it doesn´t matter which OS or computer hardware is installed.

Yes it does, it helps the developers check what went wrong this time.
So, please, Operating system and BOINC version you had this problem with. Or is that super secret, you can't put it in a forum? PM me then with that info.

Also tell how you install BOINC. Did you read the FAQ before, during or after installing BOINC? Did you make sure you separated the Data directory from the BOINC directory, not thought that was bollocks and made it a sub-directory of BOINC anyway?

And in 99% of the cases, the old Data directory is still available. So, did you check if it still was?

You may call it bad programming, but your post is bad information, as there is none in it. It's only a rant.

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hehe ya, you are right, i´ve given not much information about the systems. and i´m sorry about the words of the programming. i shouldn´t write that. sorry again.

so, here some informations about my actions.
for the first time, i copied the active WUs from the project-directory to the new location i have given in the install-settings menu (../programs/tools/boinc/data) so the new boinc can read these WUs by the first startup. i took care of the right directorys /data/projects/seti....
i never activated the "unprotected run" option. and i activated the "all users can admin seti" option on every installation.
with its first startup, boinc requested the project-informations with login etc. and after that, it was starting download the files and losing the old WUs.
after that, i saw there where now another setiathome_5.27_windows_intelx86.exe with the same name but another file size. i closed boinc and tried to overwrite the new projects-directory with my old projects-directory. this was not working.
i thought i´m not wasting more time about boinc and i installed the new boincs on the other systems and accepted the losing of WUs. now i have some more ideas, but it´s to late. the old directorys are deleted.
now the clients working like expected and i´m no longer excited about that :) so, it´s fine now.

p.s. all directorys are translated. the real directorys are in german: c:\windows\progamme\tools\boinc\....

at the end the list of systems which working for seti:

4310623 | tasks GenuineIntel
Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.20GHz [x86 Family 15 Model 3 Stepping 4] Microsoft Windows XP
Professional x86 Editon, Service Pack 3, (05.01.2600.00) 19 Aug 2008 14:58:51 UTC

4425833 | tasks GenuineIntel
Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.60GHz [x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 9] Microsoft Windows XP
Professional x86 Editon, Service Pack 3, (05.01.2600.00) 19 Aug 2008 10:05:48 UTC

4425813 | tasks GenuineIntel
Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.40GHz [x86 Family 15 Model 4 Stepping 1] Microsoft Windows XP
Professional x86 Editon, Service Pack 3, (05.01.2600.00) 18 Aug 2008 22:23:42 UTC

4531673 | tasks AuthenticAMD
AMD Athlon(tm) XP 1800+ [x86 Family 6 Model 6 Stepping 2] Microsoft Windows XP
Professional x86 Editon, Service Pack 3, (05.01.2600.00) 18 Aug 2008 19:08:09 UTC

Just double checking, this was with BOINC 6.2.18?

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Win XP SP2
BOINC 5.10.45

BOINC was running.

Downloaded BOINC 6.2.18 and started install.

BOINC was terminated.

Install failed at the point where Windows was attempting to read BOINC.MSI AFTER the settings page (program dir, data dir, protected mode, all users, etc. default options selected)

The error message is "the feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is not available - Press OK to try again, or enter a different path to a valid BOINC.MSI"

No matter what I attempt after this, BOINC fails to install with the SAME error

Now BOINC on this computer is DIABLED, I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO RUN FOR SEVERAL DAYS, OR UNTIL A SOLUTION IS FOUND.

Downloaded Installations is CLEAN, only the current BOINC install is present. Old versions of BOINC are NOT here. Uninstalling BOINC is NOT an option as these old BOINC.MSI files are not present!!

No matter what I attempt after this, BOINC fails to install with the SAME error

Now BOINC on this computer is DIABLED, I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO RUN FOR SEVERAL DAYS, OR UNTIL A SOLUTION IS FOUND.

A fix for this is already widely available. No need to shout. :-)
It's called the Microsoft Installer Cleanup utility. Download it. Run it. The former BOINC.msi file that is corrupt should be at the top of the list. Remove it. Exit the program. You may need to reboot the computer now.

Note: make sure you leave all other .msi files alone or you will have trouble uninstalling them in the future.

If your Windows version cannot find the old MSI file, you need to reinstall the old version of BOINC and choose to repair the installation. For this you need the old BOINC version installation file. If you no longer have it, download it from here (direct link).

Usually you can do the repair install, then immediately install the latest version of BOINC on top of the old version.

---

No matter what I attempt after this, BOINC fails to install with the SAME error

Now BOINC on this computer is DIABLED, I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO RUN FOR SEVERAL DAYS, OR UNTIL A SOLUTION IS FOUND.

A fix for this is already widely available. No need to shout. :-)
It's called the Microsoft Installer Cleanup utility. Download it. Run it. The former BOINC.msi file that is corrupt should be at the top of the list. Remove it. Exit the program. You notmay need to reboot the computer now.

Note: make sure you leave all other .msi files alone or you will have trouble uninstalling them in the future.

If your Windows version cannot find the old MSI file, you need to reinstall the old version of BOINC and choose to repair the installation. For this you need the old BOINC version installation file. If you no longer have it, download it from here (direct link).

Usually you can do the repair install, then immediately install the latest version of BOINC on top of the old version.

got the microsoft utility, it removed the Windows installer. It did not find a corrupt BOINC.msi, all versions are 6.2.18 here.

getting 5.10.45 to try again

Ran the microsoft cleanup utility. It did not highlight a BOINC issue, but it did do a cleanup on the microsoft installer.

Reinstalled 5.10.45 using Repair. BOINC restarted normally. Exited BOINC.

Ran 6.2.18 installer. It failed at the same point. I clicked OK to retry, it told me no can do, I clicked OK again, and the install proceeded normally.

So with error messages, I still managed to install the program. 6.2.18 is now up and running, succesfully migrating the old workunits and projects.

NOTE to all: I prefer to keep the Windows directory clean. This is an old laptop and storage space is at a premium. When I get a new laptop, it will get reformatted and get Linux installed once several important tax related matters are dealt with (actually want to dual boot Windows and Linux as the tax thing will continue)

I don't know about the USA, but here in Australia, one is required to keep old tax related documents for a certain number of years.

Installer .msi files are the equivalent for computers. You need to keep them while ever the associated program is on your computer.
As you've found, it's possible to be TOO clean.

Just double checking, this was with BOINC 6.2.18?

oh yes. upgrade install from the last 5.x version