I was happily running BOINC 6.12.34. Today, I received a message 'new version is available'. And downloaded BOINC 7.0.25.

Click downloaded file. When installing, the package boinc_7.0.25_windows_intelx86.exe extracted to a temp directory. It tried to find BOINC.msi there, but did not succeed.

The extraction process did create 213b734.msi (no BOINC.msi), and upon retry (see below) presumably the same file under other random names. OK, I copied one of them to another directory and renamed it to BOINC.msi. Copied BOINC.msi back to the temp directory.

Retry to install, the installer still wants to know 'where is BOINC.msi'. Point installer to this file, receive an error 'the feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable'. Now come on!

Did suspend antivirus still no joy. All the while tried to install with administrative rights, of course.

Lost BOINC 6.12.34 in the process


Got access to this forum. As per (where did I find that exactly?) http://boincfaq.mundayweb.com/index.php?view=119:

(1) repair BOINC 6.12.34 - download this version and reinstall. Don'forget to remove 213b734.msi that was renamed to BOINC.msi from temp directory.

(2) with 6.12.34 running, install 7.0.25.

(3) everything seems fine.

(4) phew, why on earth should I keep an .msi file when the application is already installed?

Regards,
Broeder Peter
[Posted materially this same message in malariacontrol.net forum]

(4) phew, why on earth should I keep an .msi file when the application is already installed?

You don't keep it, but Windows does. MSI stands for MicroSoft Installer. The inside of the .msi file is just a database, containing all the parts of the program that need to be installed in the directory.

When you uninstall BOINC, Windows uses the uninstaller built into the installer to uninstall BOINC. It'll need the old BOINC.msi file for that, as else it doesn't know what it needs to uninstall.

The problem of "where is the old BOINC.msi file?" is one created by Windows itself, as it's Windows which forgets where it put the correct BOINC.msi file in the first place.

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OK, I'm a bit wiser now. Thanks.

I also experienced this problem, had to do a search of my hard drive to find the right one. The problem is not that Windows forgets, as the installer gets told the right place, and is expected to remember it for later. All previous versions of BOINC (and half a billion other installers around the world) manage to do that. Sorry for being blunt. 7.0.25 has a few other glitches as can be found in other posts.

Graham

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squeak

The problem is not that Windows forgets

Ah, but it is. When you do an upgrade installation of BOINC, it's not BOINC that checks anything, but the Installer, which is a Windows Installer that holds the BOINC program components. It doesn't matter from which version to whichever next version you go...

The new BOINC its installer will invoke the previous BOINC its uninstaller. The previous BOINC version is stored as C:\Windows\Downloaded Installations\{hexadecimal random but unique key}\BOINC.msi
Neither the BOINC in the new BOINC.msi archive, nor the BOINC already installed, will invoke the old BOINC its uninstaller.

So all Windows has to do is remember this path... and it forgets. These paths get deleted out of the registry. By who or what, we don't know. The path degrades. Normally when it's been in there for quite a bit of time.

It's really not the next BOINC versions which will know the path to the old BOINC version, as the {hexadecimal key} is really random and unique and isn't the same between our systems.

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