This is not a "How To" but rather a list of links for various service installers, of which there are now quite a few. I have little or no experience with most of these installers, so feel free to post your experience within the thread, for the benefit of others.
Windows
Note that most of those installers run FAH as a service in exactly the same way, so the end result will be the same, it's just the installers that are different. Exceptions are the Firedaemon method, TRC-13's "stealth installer", and running FAH as a Scheduled Task.
- pk's Folding@Home Service Installer (WinNt/2K/XP)
This installer has been around for quite awhile, so although I have not used it myself, I feel safe in "recommending" it.
TIP: Whether you use this installer or another, pk's service.cfg utility could come in handy. It allows you to change the options or "flags" that a service runs with, for example to add (or remove) -advmethods. I prefer this to editing the registry with regedit.
Thread about pk's installer - F@HSI - Folding@Home Service Installer (v1.0 BETA 1)
Thread at folding-community.org about this installer
I have not used this installer (yet), but I like what I see so far.- Four installation options:
- Quick - Installs the service and prompts you to configure basic options.
- Custom - Installs the service and prompts you to configure all options.
- Automated - Installs the service and automatically configures it.
- Existing - Configures and existing Folding@home installation to run as a service
- The source code is GPL'd (General Public License, like Linux)
- Good installation instructions
- Contact information provided
- Can install multiple instances of FAH
- Can be configured to use -forceSSE without the need to edit a registry entry
- Creates an UNinstall script
- Four installation options:
- Folding@Home Service Guide Using SRVANY (WinNt/2K/XP)
This is what I use. I call this the 'srvany' method (as does the author of the installer ) since it uses a Microsoft program called srvany.exe, although I suspect several of these other installers use it also. I consider this "easy to use" but it's not "drop dead easy" since there are a few manual steps involved, but once it is set up, it works extremely well. - Buzzard's FAH4 Console Installer
Support Forum
Thread at Overclockers Australia (Requires registration)
I have the following reservations about this installer:- It seems to include the FAH executables ("Includes both cores"). These exe's should be downloaded ONLY from Stanford's secure servers, for security reasons, and to assure you have the latest versions.
- I do not find any sort of "readme" file explaining what this exe does.
- I do not find any contact information for the author.
UNinstall Steps:- Open a command window and change to your folding@home dir
- Type 'net stop FAH_1' (sub 1 for your client ID)
- Type 'instsrv FAH_1 REMOVE'
- Type 'exit' to close the Command Prompt
- Optional: delete all files from the folding directory
- Optional: remove netsvc.exe from the windows\system32 dir
- NoahJ's Service Installer
- Written by NoahJ of Team MacOSX
- Options can be changed without manually editing the registry. Will automatically stop and restart the service.
- Current version (as of April 12, 2004) will install only a single instance of FAH. A dual version is in the works.
- I have every reason to believe this is a quality installer. We just don't have any experience with it yet.
- Installing Folding@Home as a service using Firedaemon
Not much talk about this lately, but Firedaemon, a for-sale software program, can be used for free to run a single application as a service. If you want to run two instances of FAH, you will need to buy a license to Firedaemon, which I believe is not expensive ($25?), or you can choose one of the other installers which can install multiple instances of FAH. Others are free to disagree with me, but I see little reason to use this method. - Running FAH as a Scheduled Task
- This does not literally run FAH as a service, but does offer most of the same benefits, so is included here.
- TRC-13's stealth installer (WinNt/2K/XP) (Broken Link)
- This does not run FAH as a service but does run it "stealth".
- "All packages run the "-advmethods -forceasm -forceSSE" switches on the V4 client."
- finstall - FAH Installer for Linux,Free/OopenBSD,MacOSX,Wine
The following step-by-step instructions provided by CharlieChan:- Log in as whoever you are
- Download http://www.vendomar.ee/%7Eivo/finstall
- type chmod +x finstall
- type ./finstall
- enter no
- enter yes
- enter yes
- enter [your folding name]
- enter 31574
- [keep on hitting enter till end]
- type vi foldingathome/fah_config
- press insert
- in between the quotes enter -forcesse -advmethods
- press escape
- press :
- press q
- press enter
- type su
- type cd foldingathome
- type ./installService
- type ./folding start
- type exit