Prefetch is a feature of WinXP which allows faster booting and program startup. It requires periodic updates to files in the \\windows\\prefetch folder. Some of these updates are done during boot time, others require the computer to be idle for some time before a hidden schedule causes them to run, in particular the one causing the file layout.ini to be updated. This file provides instructions for the next defrag to place all boot files contiguously for more rapid loading. (the next defrag can be a partial one run by windows or a full one run by some commercial defrag programs which recognize layout.ini, e.g. perfect disk)
The problem is that with BOINC running the computer is not idle and layout.ini never gets updated. Then boot files needed are NOT contiguous on disk (assuming any updates have changed the files needed) and boot times suffer. A workaround is to kill BOINC overnight every now and then, but there should be a better way. Anyone know what it is?

Hello,
I think you can solve this use with at least 2 possibilities:

a) Go to the global preferences of a attached project. There you can set the time at which BOINC should run. So you can set it to idle for one hour.

b) You can use cron or the windows scheduler (what I do on one laptop) to stop/start BOINC. Use
boinccmd.exe --set_run_mode never
to stop and
boinccmd.exe --set_run_mode always
to start BOINC again.

yoyo

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Germany biggest distributed computing community Rechenkraft.net

Yoyo, thanks for this. I should have thought of it of course, but didn't. It's a pity the scheduler in boinc project prefs isn't a bit more sophisticated so that it could allow say 2 hours away from boinc per month, or similar, since it seems to take a couple of hours or so before layout.ini gets updated, but it only has to happen once a month. I guess with windows scheduler I could do better, but I'm running boinc as a service so I don't think that would work.

Thanks again.

I think there's a very similar command you use with service installations, possibly something along the lines of 'net stop boinc'. But since I don't use the service installation I can't say for sure.

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There is a day of the week scheduler coming (it's is on the todo list) but it wont make it into the next public release.

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Boinc V 7.4.36
Win7 i5 3.33G 4GB NVidia 470

in the run box you can start it manually using:

Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks

HTH
Danny

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in the run box you can start it manually using:

Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks

HTH
Danny

Woah! That did cause lag... Looks like like it hasn't been done for a year (literally).