Windows Installation Instructions (Console)

Table of contents

- Client version 6.30
- Client version 6.29 and earlier
- How to upgrade Windows client from a previous version

Note that with version 6.30, SMP has changed significantly. We now have a guide for v6.30 as well as the older guide for pre-6.30 version clients.


Client version 6.30

For this version, we suggest you read the v6.30 setup Guide.


Client version 6.29 and earlier

In addition to the instructions below, we also suggest you check out instructions on the FAH wiki as well as the older setup guide.

Installation instructions are also included with the client download in a readme.rtf file.

Note: The account under which the client runs MUST have a password. Blank passwords will cause the FAH cores to fail.

1. Required Software: The Windows SMP client requires the Microsoft .NET framework v2.0; please install this on Windows 2000 and Windows XP systems prior to installing the client. The version 2.0 framework is required; it can co-exist with other versions, but this version must be installed. It can be obtained from Microsoft at the following URL: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0856eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5&displaylang=en. Administrator privileges are required for installation.

Note: Windows Vista/7 already includes the necessary .NET files.

2. Required Files: Run the self-extracting FAH Client installer to unpack the SMP client files.

Note: For Windows Vista/7, install the client to C:\Users\<user_name>\FAH If you intall to the C:\Program Files\... directory tree, the client may not run if UAC is not disabled.

3. Required Install: Run install.bat from within the SMP install directory to complete the installation. This will install MPI services that the client needs. If you have Windows Firewall enabled, you may get a pop-up window asking if you should give access to the smpd and mpiexec programs. Grant access. If you use an alternate firewall product, you will likely have to make a similar exception for smpd.

Note: To run install.bat correctly in Windows Vista/7, you must open a command window as Administrator, and navigate to the SMP directory. Run the install.bat file from that command line location.

Note: The username and password you provide for mpiexec should be your Windows login that you will run the client under. This is used for authentication on your local machine. It is cached in encrypted form in your Registry and is not transmitted to FAH servers. And if you change your password, you will need to run install.bat again.

At the end of the install process, you should see two lines of output: 

 If you see this twice, MPI is working
 If you see this twice, MPI is working

If you do not see these lines, do not start the client. MPI is not successfully installed, and the client will not run successfully.

4. Execution Required: Run fah.exe to start the SMP client. You will get another pop-up firewall window. Note that you will need the -smp flag for the 6.22 client and -smp -deino for the Deino version of 6.22. See this wiki page for creating shortcuts with flags.

The 6.22 client binary works with both MPICH and Deino MPI libraries The default is to use optimizations for MPICH. To use Deino optimizations (typically yielding better performance when then Deino libraries are installed), call with -smp and also -deino.

Note: We do not officially support running the SMP client as a service, although people have found the following to work:

  • .NET 2.0 & Windows SMP Client must be installed from the same account with full administrator privileges.
  • using the -configonly flag, say "yes" to services question & configure everything else as you normally would. Do not start the client yet.
  • Open the services control pannel, go to the new FAH WinSMP service & open the properties and click the Log On tab. Select Log On As: This Account (instead of Local System Account), put the user name for the account under which .NET 2.0 and the SMP client were installed. Enter the password.
  • Reboot. The SMP client will automatically start in service mode.

See the forum link for more details.


How to upgrade Windows client from a previous version

Thanks to Xilikon for these instructions.

  1. Make a new FAH directory on C: or any other drive.
  2. Unzip the package in the new folder you just created.
  3. Open the command prompt window (you can type cmd.exe in the search box). Under Vista/Win7, you need to either disable UAC or run as Administrator to make it work.
  4. Move to the folder with CD.
  5. First run install.bat to instal MPICH.
  6. Type "Folding@home-Win32-x86.exe -configonly" (some people like to first rename the exe to fah6.exe to make less typing) then configure it to your needs.
  7. Start the client with "Folding@home-Win32-x86.exe -smp". The -smp flag is necessary unless you already added it in the advanced flags during configuration.

A full installer just merely creates a new folder, add the executable and add a uninstaller.

For the upgrade :

  1. Stop the current client by pressing CTRL+C.
  2. Open your current folder (that you used to run 5.91/5.92 smp client).
  3. Either rename or delete the old Fah executable.
  4. Unzip/copy the new 6.22beta2 executable in the same folder.
  5. run the new executable with the -configonly flag then check the config (there are some new fields to add).
  6. Restart the client as usual.

The "test folder" mentioned above is just the folder where you run the smp client.