I tried to install BOINC 5.8.16 from the download page
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download_all.php

However, when I try to install BOINC in a Windows 95 machine using that installer, it gives me below message and interrupts the installation.

"BOINC requires that your computer is running Windows 98 or Windows 98 SE or Windows Me or Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 or Windows XP or Windows 2003 Server"

How's this installer supporting Windows 95 then? If not, then why does the download page mentioned above says that it "also works on Windows 95 and NT 4.0".

Can someone point to a BOINC installer which can work with Windows 95?

You can see the exact details at the below image

I followed this BOINC discussion thread
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_thread.php?id=822&postid=4486#4486

Was able to install BOINC 5.8.16 by executing the below command at command prompt from the path this file was located.

boinc_5.8.16_windows_intelx86.exe /a

However, I couldn't find a oleacc.dll which will work with Windows 95, so stuck at the error "The OLEACC.DLL file cannot start. Check the file to determine the problem". All pointers found with Google search for this dll seems to either point to non-existing places or to newer versions of this dll. I read that this dll is available by installing Microsoft Active Accessibility 1.2, the specific version is no where to be found either!

Having no luck with BOINC version 5.8.16, I looked for some older versions and found BOINC version 5.4.0 from this link
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dl/boinc_5.4.0_windows_intelx86.exe

Installed that in Windows 95 through command prompt using the command

boinc_5.4.0_windows_intelx86.exe /a

Installation went good and BOINC Manager started successfully after that. This BOINC version did not ask for any oleacc.dll. I was able to add SETI@home project using the BOINC Manager.

I had not realized that installing BOINC is just the first challenge. There are absolutely next to no projects which has any application which can run on Windows 95. Any project which I add to my BOINC client will download couple of tasks and all of them fail with the error message

Process creation failed: A device attached to the system is not functioning. (0x1f)

It was really frustrating to find not even a single project which supports Windows 95 or in that matter support any pre-WinXP windows versions such as Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me or Windows 2000.

Finally, I stumbled upon the Leiden Classical project http://boinc.gorlaeus.net/ while I was moving from one project to another. I looked at the Tasks tab to see how many are showing Computation Error and how many are still Downloading. I was surprised to see a Running status instead of Computation Error.

Yes, Leiden Classical is the only project I could find so far which will run on Windows 95. If any of you know of any other projects which supports Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me or Windows 2000, please add the details here in response.

Seti will do as well, but you need to use the anonymous platform. See http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=48986 for more information and how to get and use the files.

Apropos, was this Windows 95 fully updated?
Did it for instance use the newer Microsoft Installer (2.0 or 3.1, I forget which)?

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Thanks for that link on SETI@home 5.27, downloading it now to test and see if it works for me. Will post the outcome in this thread as soon as I find out.

BTW, yes Microsoft Installer 2.0 (aka Windows Installer 2.0) was already there. That's the latest version of Microsoft Installer available for Windows 95/98/Me. Most other Windows updates are there as well, if not all. If there is anything specific which BOINC installer or projects need, please let me know and I can check if it's present there.

I did as per the first two posts in that thread on running SETI@home 5.27 and did an update on the project from BOINC Manager. Looks like I am done with the daily quota with all the failed tasks I had earlier.

Sending scheduler request to http://setiboinc.ssl.berkeley.edu/sah_cgi/cgi
Reason: To fetch work
Requesting 86400 seconds of new work
Scheduler request to http://setiboinc.ssl.berkeley.edu/sah_cgi/cgi succeeded
Message from server: No tasks sent
Message from server: No tasks are available for SETI@home v7
Message from server: This computer has finished a daily quota of 46 tasks
No work from project

I will need to wait for some more time to see if I will actually get any tasks from SETI@home. My SETI@home preferences says as below against "Run only the selected applications"

SETI@home Enhanced: no
Astropulse v505: no
SETI@home v7: yes
AstroPulse v6: no

I am bit skeptical about that v7 part. Will update tomorrow probably when I will have more quota of tasks to download.

Edit: Added few more log messages

I will need to wait for some more time to see if I will actually get any tasks from SETI@home. My SETI@home preferences says as below against "Run only the selected applications"

SETI@home Enhanced: no
Astropulse v505: no
SETI@home v7: yes
AstroPulse v6: no

I am bit skeptical about that v7 part. Will update tomorrow probably when I will have more quota of tasks to download.

Edit: Added few more log messages

You won't get any work with just the SETI@home v7 selection set, v7 hasn't gone live on the Main project yet, Set the SETI@home Enhanced selection to yes instead.

See there are no applications for v7 yet:

Setiathome applications

Claggy

I am eligible for new tasks now. Next day and new quota of tasks.

You won't get any work with just the SETI@home v7 selection set, v7 hasn't gone live on the Main project yet, Set the SETI@home Enhanced selection to yes instead.

See there are no applications for v7 yet:

I changed it to enable SETI@home Enhanced as you said. I now got setiathome_enhanced 5.27 tasks and they are running now on BOINC 5.4.0 on Windows 95. Thanks for the tips from Ageless and Claggy.

Seti will do as well, but you need to use the anonymous platform. See http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=48986 for more information and how to get and use the files.

The same trick works with Windows NT 4.0 as well to get SETI@home run in that. BOINC 5.8.16 installs very well on Windows NT 4.0 though. Leiden Classical project also has running tasks for Windows NT 4.0.