Is there any reason why you "force" users to reboot after installing the BOINC client for Windows?
As pointed out in this post, this annoying reboot can be easily avoided (by simply removing the empty file named RebootPending.txt) and that does not seem to cause any harm (at least not on my computers).

Installing BOINC makes Windows limited user accounts, which are used for permission on the Programs and Data directories and when you use BOINC installed as a service. Windows requires this reboot, to finalize the making of the accounts.

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Thanks for your reply Ageless.

Installing BOINC makes Windows limited user accounts.

Actually it does not on my computers (Windows 7 x64). BOINC installer did not create any user account (I use the command net user to list all users).

Windows requires this reboot, to finalize the making of the accounts.

AFAIK there is no need to reboot after creating a user account. Neither http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Create-a-user-account nor http://www.itechtalk.com/thread16618.html say anything about rebooting. When I create a new user by myself, Windows does not ask me to reboot.

Thanks for your reply Ageless.

Installing BOINC makes Windows limited user accounts.

Actually it does not on my computers (Windows 7 x64). BOINC installer did not create any user account (I use the command net user to list all users).

Windows requires this reboot, to finalize the making of the accounts.

AFAIK there is no need to reboot after creating a user account. Neither http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Create-a-user-account nor http://www.itechtalk.com/thread16618.html say anything about rebooting. When I create a new user by myself, Windows does not ask me to reboot.

The permission structure of the BOINC Data directory is such that it required its own set of groups to manage it. By default, the admin account installing BOINC is added to the boinc_admins group. In order for that change to take effect you would either need to logoff and then log back in, or reboot.

Overall it was less error prone to reboot as that was already built into the Windows Installer technology than to logoff/login.

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----- Rom
BOINC Development Team, U.C. Berkeley
My Blog

it required its own set of groups to manage it.

You mean, a user group in Windows?

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/ClientSetupLogicWinSix

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Thank you for the link.

As the wiki says, user accounts are created if (in fact iff) "secure" is checked, which I would guess is rarely the case (at least, the majority of users does not use this option).

Besides, even when "secure" is checked and user accounts are subsequently created, the reboot *also* seems to be useless on my computers (I have just tested it under Windows XP SP3). Again, AFAIK I do not see any case where creating/modifying/deleting user accounts requires a reboot. But I am not at all an expert on that matter, so perhaps I missed something.

PS: as you know, but just for the sake of documentation, "secure" corresponds to the checkbox "protected application execution"


If "secure" is checked:
1) before install: no BOINC users


2) during install: creating BOINC users


after install: BOINC users created

To see the groups which are always created, use net localgroup

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