Installing SMP as a Service: Step-by-step
lordbean
Ontario, Canada
Warning: this guide assumes you have enough understanding of a windows command prompt to be able to work with it. If you do not, please feel free to ask for assistance.
After becoming irritated at having to look at the taskbar buttons, I did some research and figured out how to configure the SMP folding@home client to run as a service. Here are the steps required:
1. Download Folding@Home SMP
2. Install the client
3. Download the newest folding binary and paste it into the folder the client installed into (look for a folding@home folder in c:\program files or c:\program files (x86))
4. Open a Command Prompt (on XP, start -> run -> cmd.exe, on vista, type cmd.exe in the search box, then right click the black box icon and click Run as Administrator)
5. Navigate to the folding client's folder
6. Type install and push enter to set up the SMP service for the folding client. Input your windows username and password when asked, and remember what the program showed you for the username - you'll need it later. Make sure you see the "If you see this twice, MPI is working" message twice on the screen.
7. Type folding@home-win32-x86 -configonly. Setup your username and team number (put 93 as team number for Icrontic). When asked if you would like to change advanced options, type yes. As you go down the options, these are the lines you are looking for and what to type beside them:
Install automatically (launch as a service in this directory)? yes
Other options: -smp
The folding@home client is now registered as a service, but we are not quite finished yet. Another couple of steps must be done to allow it to run properly.
8. Close the command prompt box, we are finished with it. Open up the Windows control panel, open Administrative Tools, open Services.
9. Locate the Folding@Home-CPU-[1] service. Right click on it, and click Properties. In the Startup Type selector, choose Automatic (Delayed Start) if the option is available, if not, leave it on Automatic. Now, click the Log On tab. Currently, the Local System Account bullet should be selected. Change the bullet to This account: and input the windows username and password that were used when you ran "install" in the command box. Click OK, and close out of Services.
10. Reboot the system.
Once the computer restarts and completes booting up, the folding client should launch and begin to work in the background. To verify that it was installed successfully, bring up the Task Manager (shortcut: CTRL-Shift-Escape) and look for four copies of the FahCore_a1.exe process. If they are there, and after a short period of time your CPU usage jumps to and stays at 100%, then the installation was successful.
These steps may be repeated to install multiple SMP clients on the same machine, just remember that each client needs to have its own unique Machine ID. The above instructions would use the default of 1. Simply change it to any other number from 2 to 9 for other clients, ensuring that each one uses its own unique number.
After becoming irritated at having to look at the taskbar buttons, I did some research and figured out how to configure the SMP folding@home client to run as a service. Here are the steps required:
1. Download Folding@Home SMP
2. Install the client
3. Download the newest folding binary and paste it into the folder the client installed into (look for a folding@home folder in c:\program files or c:\program files (x86))
4. Open a Command Prompt (on XP, start -> run -> cmd.exe, on vista, type cmd.exe in the search box, then right click the black box icon and click Run as Administrator)
5. Navigate to the folding client's folder
6. Type install and push enter to set up the SMP service for the folding client. Input your windows username and password when asked, and remember what the program showed you for the username - you'll need it later. Make sure you see the "If you see this twice, MPI is working" message twice on the screen.
7. Type folding@home-win32-x86 -configonly. Setup your username and team number (put 93 as team number for Icrontic). When asked if you would like to change advanced options, type yes. As you go down the options, these are the lines you are looking for and what to type beside them:
Install automatically (launch as a service in this directory)? yes
Other options: -smp
The folding@home client is now registered as a service, but we are not quite finished yet. Another couple of steps must be done to allow it to run properly.
8. Close the command prompt box, we are finished with it. Open up the Windows control panel, open Administrative Tools, open Services.
9. Locate the Folding@Home-CPU-[1] service. Right click on it, and click Properties. In the Startup Type selector, choose Automatic (Delayed Start) if the option is available, if not, leave it on Automatic. Now, click the Log On tab. Currently, the Local System Account bullet should be selected. Change the bullet to This account: and input the windows username and password that were used when you ran "install" in the command box. Click OK, and close out of Services.
10. Reboot the system.
Once the computer restarts and completes booting up, the folding client should launch and begin to work in the background. To verify that it was installed successfully, bring up the Task Manager (shortcut: CTRL-Shift-Escape) and look for four copies of the FahCore_a1.exe process. If they are there, and after a short period of time your CPU usage jumps to and stays at 100%, then the installation was successful.
These steps may be repeated to install multiple SMP clients on the same machine, just remember that each client needs to have its own unique Machine ID. The above instructions would use the default of 1. Simply change it to any other number from 2 to 9 for other clients, ensuring that each one uses its own unique number.
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Comments
Your guide seems very straight forward and easy to follow though!
I cannot for the life of me figure out what is preventing this folder from being deleted. I cannot find a service name I recognize or even anything mentioning Folding or any of the executables in the folder. I've checked the task manager for applications, processes, and services to no avail.
I'd also rather not force delete it if that's possible, I am really curious what the bleep is going on.
I had the same problem with the config files when I was first starting out also. What I've found though is that it's much easier to create a fresh config file than it is to alter a preexisting one. Alternatively you can also create or modify config files with notepad. Here's a shot of my config file(except passkey) in notepad.
<a href="http://s598.photobucket.com/albums/tt69/makoa26/?action=view¤t=Capture006.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i598.photobucket.com/albums/tt69/makoa26/Capture006.jpg" border="0" alt="smp config file"></a>