Folding Forum

Hello,

yesterday I installed the update to 7.6.13 in Windows 10 Pro and recognized that F@H is automatically started at Windows startup.
How can I prevent this (I want to start it manually)?

Best regards

OLLI

Welcome to the F@H Forum OLLI_S,

Option 1
Uninstall the client and choose to keep the data. Re-install the client and during the process, select the manual start-up option.

Option 2
Open up a Run windows (Windows key + R)
Enter shell:startup
In the Window that opens delete the Folding@home shortcut

Just wondering, what's the reason behind the manual start-up as opposed to automatic startup?

Thank you PantherX, I have selected the second option (remove via Shell).
The reason is simple: I want to decide myself when F@H is started and using resources (even when not folding, F@H uses system resources).
I have disabled all apps from autostart to have a fast system.

I can understand the need to have the fastest boot time.

Regarding using resources, I would say that it is similar to the print service and doesn't use lots of RAM or CPU cycles if it isn't folding. If you want to ensure that it always start-up in a paused manner, add this to your client:
<pause-on-start v='true'/>
Open up Advanced Control (AKA FAHControl) -> Configure -> Expert -> Extra client options where the Name is "pause-on-start" and the value is "true"

I would be curious to see if the start-up of the OS is any faster/slower/same with F@H starting up in a paused manner... assuming you're keen to test and report your results

I am playing games, sometimes also VR games.
So I like to have not too many apps opened, that's all

Please try the "pause-on-start" suggestion and measure what resources are actually used when starting FAHClient and report back. It would be nice to have a scientifically accurate assessment of "using resources (even when not folding, F@H uses system resources)." There's no doubt that FAHClient, itself, occupies a certain amount of virtual ram but when it's idle, those memory pages are move off-line if you're running other programs that need memory.

Thanks for Option 2, seems working.
The reason why it is good to have possibility of long term pause is in my case simple.
During working days I am using my home computer randomly usually 1 hour at morning and 2 hours at evening, somedays not at all. It is not enough time to finish WUs and have no sense to compute and expire units.
I have pretty fast gaming GPU and during weekend my computer is almost 24 hours a day on. But nowdays I am not gaming, it is only for downloading, TV, video-calls, some mini games for kids etc. So the graphics beast can process really big number of WUs.

But there can be also lots of other reasons e.g. cheap power during night tariff.

So the functionality to FINISH-AND-PAUSE (without annoying auto starts) can be very useful. Before I was trying to de-associate computing slots, after removing all it resets to default state. Then I had try to remove client instance in left window. Same shit. Why does the advanced control always trying to override or add some settings. I was in it that is for advanced users that knows what are doing.

PantherX wrote:Welcome to the F@H Forum OLLI_S,

Option 1
Uninstall the client and choose to keep the data. Re-install the client and during the process, select the manual start-up option.

Option 2
Open up a Run windows (Windows key + R)
Enter shell:startup
In the Window that opens delete the Folding@home shortcut

Just wondering, what's the reason behind the manual start-up as opposed to automatic startup?

clovek wrote:...So the functionality to FINISH-AND-PAUSE (without annoying auto starts) can be very useful. Before I was trying to de-associate computing slots, after removing all it resets to default state. Then I had try to remove client instance in left window. Same shit. Why does the advanced control always trying to override or add some settings. I was in it that is for advanced users that knows what are doing...

Welcome to the F@H Forum clovek,

Not sure if you have sen my second post which talks about <pause-on-start v='true'/> which means that once you set the Slot to Finish and it is paused, upon restart, it will be paused. If you were folding and you rebooted your system, the slot would also be paused.

FAHControl will always require a slot... that's the design aspect of it. If you remove all Slots, it will automatically add a CPU slot. In your use case, I believe that <pause-on-start v='true'/> would meet it. If not, please provide additional details and we can try to help you out

Remember that there's no reason to pause/enable all slots at the same time or for the same reason. e.g.- Want to start a game right now. Try pausing the GPU slot(s) and leave the CPU slot(s) folding. FAH is very good at running CPU slots a a low enough priority that foreground activities will receive almost normal processing speeds.

The GPU software has no control of priority or any abiity to interrupt whatever might be going on. It handles processing requests FIFO unless there's room for multiple kernels to coexist and even then it can be problematic because software designers know that so they ASSUME the GPU is always free when they want to use it.

OLLI_S wrote:yesterday I installed the update to 7.6.13 in Windows 10 Pro and recognized that F@H is automatically started at Windows startup.
How can I prevent this (I want to start it manually)?

Simplest way is to remove the startup shortcut (and place it on your Desktop instead, if one is not there already):
Delete the icon from the C:\Users\[username]\Start menu\Programs\Startup folder.

You might have to take ownership of the C:\Users folder first, to overcome Windows security.

PantherX wrote: FAHControl will always require a slot... that's the design aspect of it. If you remove all Slots, it will automatically add a CPU slot. In your use case, I believe that <pause-on-start v='true'/> would meet it. If not, please provide additional details and we can try to help you out

Now I am using that pause-on-start = true and I am okay with this method. I found some bug in this functionality. I set the property to false when I want to compute and even to continue after restart. Sometimes the property when is in false state disappears. It is just self erases but not always. That not happen in true state.

The pause-on-start state of 'false' is the default. Depending on how you look for that parameter, it will not be shown. Mostly the client shows settings that are other than the default, the exception would be in the log file if you set the verbosity up to 5 from the default of 3.