I left BOINC over problems with SETI. I erased my account. I removed the client and any trace of it that non-Apple utilities (ones that will show you the underlying non-GUI-friendly files) could find. I deselected BOINC from my start-up applications. I chose a different screen-saver. Still when I try to start a screen saver with a hot corner, the message “You cannot use the BOINCSaver screen saver with this version of OS X...” strobes in black and white for as long as I care to stand it —this on a computer and OS which had been quite happily running BOINC until recently. I grew desperate. I deleted *all* the startup application preferences. This finally made “BOINCManager unknown” disappear from my admin Users and Groups startup applications window, but the flashing “You cannot use the BOINCSaver screen saver with this version of OS X…” message is still all the screen-saver I have. Please, tell me how I may go in peace.

MacBookPro, Retina, summer 2012, 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7, running system X.95 (Mavericks)

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I left BOINC over problems with SETI. I erased my account. I removed the client and any trace of it that non-Apple utilities (ones that will show you the underlying non-GUI-friendly files) could find. I deselected BOINC from my start-up applications. I chose a different screen-saver. Still when I try to start a screen saver with a hot corner, the message “You cannot use the BOINCSaver screen saver with this version of OS X...” strobes in black and white for as long as I care to stand it —this on a computer and OS which had been quite happily running BOINC until recently. I grew desperate. I deleted *all* the startup application preferences. This finally made “BOINCManager unknown” disappear from my admin Users and Groups startup applications window, but the flashing “You cannot use the BOINCSaver screen saver with this version of OS X…” message is still all the screen-saver I have. Please, tell me how I may go in peace.

MacBookPro, Retina, summer 2012, 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7, running system X.95 (Mavericks)

Sounds like you did not run the uninstaller. When you only get parts by hand and leave other parts .......

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Yes, I agree. http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Uninstalling_BOINC

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**IT WORKS!**

Thank you. I *did* originally fiollow instructions which I got from this very forum
(see: https://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_thread.php?id=1067).

Now thanks to your kind advice I have re-downloaded the installer, used the de-installer, checked for the files the Uninstaller warns you to remove by hand (they were already gone from my previous attempted purges), and ‘lo! So far, at least. I did not even have to restart the blessed machine before the strobing “no” message vanished away.

I will remember this. Simple, strait forward solutions to computer problems are rare, Someday when other things in my life are more stable, I may return.

That's one of the nasty secrets with OS X; even though it's advertised that you can uninstall software by simply dragging it to the trash, there are still lots of pieces that you miss. It's the same with Windows, but there is a slightly more active approach by having a precedent for an uninstaller and a central place to go when you want to uninstall something.

I'm not saying that either is superior, but after a couple of years even an OS X machine can show great improvement with a reformat and reinstall of the operating system.

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My Detailed BOINC Stats