I just upgraded (clean install, actually) from 2008R2 to 2012R2 after discovering that 2k8 doesn't like native 4k HDDs. I reinstalled BOINC (7.2.33) and have had some issues.

1. VirtualBox 4.2.16 won't install at all. When I launch the combined BOINC/Vbox installer, I get a dialog box that says "BOINC optionally uses [*]. Would you like to install it now?", where [*] represents a long set of Chinese characters, ranging from approx. 250 to 1000 characters. The number of characters appearing is different each time I relaunch the installer. I assume that the dialog box is asking me about installing VirtualBox, so I click "Yes", and it indeed attempts to install Vbox. The install fails and moves on to installing BOINC, which is successful. I do not have Hyper-V activated, but I do have virtualization (VT-x & VT-d) enabled in the BIOS. The server has no roles/features enabled yet other than storage services and desktop experience.

The event log shows the following error:

Faulting application name: MsiExec.exe, version: 5.0.9600.16384, time stamp: 0x5215e4b5
Faulting module name: netshell.dll, version: 6.3.9600.16384, time stamp: 0x5215dba8
Exception code: 0xc0000420
Fault offset: 0x0000000000072a37
Faulting process id: 0x8b4
Faulting application start time: 0x01cf091f9f8cd068
Faulting application path: C:\Windows\System32\MsiExec.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\netshell.dll
Report Id: fb85233e-7512-11e3-8178-00248c269340
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

2. When I allow BOINC to run, using the preferences set in my BAM account, it frequently causes my desktop to "freeze", which is to say that the taskbar, start menu, and any icons on the desktop are unresponsive. I lose right-click functionality as well, although the mouse pointer moves freely. The only thing I can do to regain control of the GUI is to ctrl-alt-del to pull up the task manager and kill BOINC. The machine has no suitable GPUs that BOINC could even recognize or access, and GPU computing is disabled for this machine in the BOINC settings. Nothing is different about my hardware or the BOINC settings from when it was running fine under 2008R2; I'm simply using 2012R2 now.

I am a total virgin when it comes to Server 2012 or Windows 8. I've never even touched a computer running Windows 8 before (this GUI is making me want to vomit). So there may be some new "features" that I am unaware of.

Questions:

1. Can anyone give some insight into the two problems above?

2. Does anyone have advice for running BOINC under Server 2012R2 to improve performance and/or mitigate against future problems?

3. I will expand this server's roles to include Exchange Server 2013 and possibly a domain controller. I know there are some funny things about BOINC and domain controllers, which I will learn about when I get ready to do it, but should I be aware of anything else as I activate more roles & features?

You don't need to install VirtualBox, if you don't plan on using it. The other download option on the download page is only the BOINC installer (~9MB).

BOINC 6 and 7 are incompatible with domain controllers, due to the fact that DCs use a global account option, whereas BOINC only works with local accounts. So in that case you can install BOINC 5.10, although there are people who claim they have BOINC 6/7 working on their DC, but none that I ever found that told us in so much detail how he did so.

As for the rest, I'll notify a developer to come take a look.

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Here's another problem to add to the list:

Every time I right-click on the BOINC tray icon to snooze, it crashes BOINC and the Windows desktop manager. When I say it crashes BOINC, this includes all workunits, boinc.exe, and boincmgr.exe. Curiously, I can't find boinctray.exe even when BOINC is running normally. Perhaps this process is not used with the Win8/2012 GUI? I noticed its absence because, from past experience, any time BOINC would crash/die/exit normally, boinctray.exe would always stay alive in the running processes.


EDIT: Why is someone else's signature graphic in my post?

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EDIT: Why is someone else's signature graphic in my post?

Boincstats reordered their database sometime ago, you'll need to check what your lastest user number is, and change your sig.

Claggy