If any developers read these posts, I recommend selection of disk drive for use by the client. Some people, like myself, have high speed solid state drives connected to the PC, either internally or via USB3. I would like to select this drive for processing.

Already available.

Windows: In the installer, third screen in, click Advanced, change paths for the Programs- and Data directories.




Mac OSX: moving Boinc Manager or Boinc data folder to a different drive.



For Linux it depends on if you use the Berkeley installer or repositories.

---

I was reading through the BOINC wiki earlier. If I understand correctly you can create a cc_config.xml file and use the <data_dir> tag to specify a custom path without reinstalling?

I was reading through the BOINC wiki earlier. If I understand correctly you can create a cc_config.xml file and use the <data_dir> tag to specify a custom path without reinstalling?

Unfortunately not. BOINC would need to know the location of the data directory, in order to read the cc_config.xml file, in order to....

Er. I don't know why that's still there. Possibly a left-over from when cc_config.xml lived in the same directory as the executable programs? But that wouldn't be possible on modern versions of Windows, at least.

Unfortunately not. BOINC would need to know the location of the data directory, in order to read the cc_config.xml file, in order to....

Which is what the &lt;data_dir&gt; container does. With it you tell BOINC where to look for the data directory, without the need to reinstall BOINC. Has been in there since 5.10.20

I wouldn't know why it wouldn't work anymore under BOINC 7, or Windows 8.1 for that matter, not unless the registry entry trumps anything written in cc_config.xml, but I don't think so. I think cc_config.xml is read after the registry, so it trumps anything in the registry. Windows version, or indeed OS version has nothing to do with it.
See http://boincfaq.mundayweb.com/index.php?language=1&view=292 for how I told people with BOINC 5.10 to move their data to another directory and tell BOINC about it. Now you just move the data directory over.

---

Unfortunately not. BOINC would need to know the location of the data directory, in order to read the cc_config.xml file, in order to....

Which is what the &lt;data_dir&gt; container does. With it you tell BOINC where to look for the data directory, without the need to reinstall BOINC. Has been in there since 5.10.20

I wouldn't know why it wouldn't work anymore under BOINC 7, or Windows 8.1 for that matter, not unless the registry entry trumps anything written in cc_config.xml, but I don't think so. I think cc_config.xml is read after the registry, so it trumps anything in the registry. Windows version, or indeed OS version has nothing to do with it.
See http://boincfaq.mundayweb.com/index.php?language=1&view=292 for how I told people with BOINC 5.10 to move their data to another directory and tell BOINC about it. Now you just move the data directory over.

Yes, but that's BOINC 5, before sandboxing and Windows 7 protected special folders and all that jazz.

So, let me think about this. On a typical modern-ish Windows setup - Windows 7 is what I'm familiar with - we'd default to:

BOINC executables in C:\Program Files\boinc ... (need administrator permission to write data here)
BOINC data in C:\ProgramData\boinc

Registry HKLM...INSTALLDIR points to the first of these
Registry HKLM...DATADIR points to the second of these

So, we could put a 'stub' cc_config.xml into C:\ProgramData\boinc (and have it found by the existing registry directive), and use it to redirect all subsequent reads into drive M:, or wherever? Would one put any other cc_config values into that stub file, or into a second cc_config.xml file in the redirected data folder? It just feels unclear in the multi-folder environment which has evolved since the original Wiki was written. I might feel moved to test it sometime.

I was reading through the BOINC wiki earlier. If I understand correctly you can create a cc_config.xml file and use the <data_dir> tag to specify a custom path without reinstalling?

Unfortunately not. BOINC would need to know the location of the data directory, in order to read the cc_config.xml file, in order to....

Er. I don't know why that's still there. Possibly a left-over from when cc_config.xml lived in the same directory as the executable programs? But that wouldn't be possible on modern versions of Windows, at least.

It should still work. Move everything into a new directory, and create the cc_config.xml in the old directory. BOINC will start in the old directory, read cc_config.xml, switch to the new directory, find all the files, and re-create any that are missing.

It should still work.

It doesn't. I just tried and am writing about it to the BOINC Alpha list.

While it may show the new data directory, it actually doesn't run from there, and only returns errors.

22-Oct-2014 21:35:10 [---] Data directory: M:\ProgramData\BOINC
22-Oct-2014 21:35:10 [---] Running under account Ageless
22-Oct-2014 21:35:10 [---] [coproc] launching child process at P:\BOINCProgram\BOINC\boinc.exe
22-Oct-2014 21:35:10 [---] [coproc] relative to directory C:\ProgramData\BOINC
22-Oct-2014 21:35:10 [---] [coproc] with data directory "M:\ProgramData\BOINC"

22-Oct-2014 21:35:11 Initialization completed
22-Oct-2014 21:35:11 [---] Can't create HTTP response output file notices/albert.phys.uwm.edu_rss_main.php.xml
22-Oct-2014 21:35:11 [SETI@home] [coproc] Assigning ATI instance 0 to 14au14aa.20039.15200.438086664195.12.48_0
22-Oct-2014 21:35:11 [SETI@home] [task] task_state=EXECUTING for 14au14aa.20039.15200.438086664195.12.48_0 from start
22-Oct-2014 21:35:11 [SETI@home] [cpu_sched] Restarting task 14au14aa.20039.15200.438086664195.12.48_0 using setiathome_v7 version 703 (opencl_ati5_cat132) in slot 0
22-Oct-2014 21:35:11 [Pirates@Home] [sched_op] Starting scheduler request
22-Oct-2014 21:35:11 [Pirates@Home] [sched_op] Deferring communication for 00:03:50
22-Oct-2014 21:35:11 [Pirates@Home] [sched_op] Reason: scheduler request to http://pirates.spy-hill.net/cgi-bin/cgi failed: fopen() failed
22-Oct-2014 21:35:28 [---] Can't create HTTP response output file notices/boinc.berkeley.edu_vbox_notices.php.xml
22-Oct-2014 21:35:28 [SETI@home] [coproc] ATI instance 0; 1.000000 pending for 14au14aa.20039.15200.438086664195.12.48_0
22-Oct-2014 21:35:28 [SETI@home] [coproc] ATI instance 0: confirming 1.000000 instance for 14au14aa.20039.15200.438086664195.12.48_0
22-Oct-2014 21:35:42 [SETI@home] [task] Process for 14au14aa.20039.15200.438086664195.12.48_0 exited, exit code 4294967295, task state 1
22-Oct-2014 21:35:42 [SETI@home] [task] task_state=EXITED for 14au14aa.20039.15200.438086664195.12.48_0 from handle_exited_app
22-Oct-2014 21:35:42 [SETI@home] [sched_op] Deferring communication for 00:01:17
22-Oct-2014 21:35:42 [SETI@home] [sched_op] Reason: Unrecoverable error for task 14au14aa.20039.15200.438086664195.12.48_0
22-Oct-2014 21:35:42 [SETI@home] [task] result state=COMPUTE_ERROR for 14au14aa.20039.15200.438086664195.12.48_0 from CS::report_result_error
22-Oct-2014 21:35:42 [SETI@home] [task] Process for 14au14aa.20039.15200.438086664195.12.48_0 exited
22-Oct-2014 21:35:42 [SETI@home] [task] exit code -1 (0xffffffff): (unknown error)
22-Oct-2014 21:35:42 [---] Can't create HTTP response output file notices/boinc.thesonntags.com_collatz_notices.php.xml
22-Oct-2014 21:35:42 [SETI@home] Computation for task 14au14aa.20039.15200.438086664195.12.48_0 finished
22-Oct-2014 21:35:42 [SETI@home] [task] result state=COMPUTE_ERROR for 14au14aa.20039.15200.438086664195.12.48_0 from CS::app_finished
22-Oct-2014 21:35:42 [SETI@home] [coproc] Assigning ATI instance 0 to 11au14aa.4611.294363.438086664197.12.91_0
22-Oct-2014 21:35:42 [SETI@home] [task] task_state=EXECUTING for 11au14aa.4611.294363.438086664197.12.91_0 from start
22-Oct-2014 21:35:42 [SETI@home] Starting task 11au14aa.4611.294363.438086664197.12.91_0
22-Oct-2014 21:35:42 [SETI@home] [cpu_sched] Starting task 11au14aa.4611.294363.438086664197.12.91_0 using setiathome_v7 version 703 (opencl_ati5_cat132) in slot 0
22-Oct-2014 21:35:52 [---] Can't create HTTP response output file notices/dnetc.net_notices.php.xml

---

It does for me, but only partly, after jumping through several hoops, and with some quirky bits. I'll write to boinc_alpha as well, but let you go first.