A couple things worth knowing about changes in the way Win10 does things:

Win10, by default, uses your computer and bandwidth to send updates to others; this short article shows how to overcome the default (it also has a slide show showing seventeen things you may like about Win10):
http://blog.seattlepi.com/techblog/2015/08/03/windows-10-uses-your-bandwidth-to-send-patches-updates-to-others/#34107101=0

Win10 has automatic updates. This article shows a way to manage the feature:
http://www.wired.com/2015/07/stop-windows-10-auto-updates/
This issue is a gray area for me. From an article I read, it seems the updates take effect on next reboot. (If a reboot is forced, it's bad news for CPDN folks -- unless Windows does a proper shutdown.) This feature means Patch Tuesday goes away -- hence my most common reason for rebooting also goes away. If you have Win10 experience, would you please tell us of your experience with auto-updates?

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"We have met the enemy and he is us." -- Pogo
Greetings from coastal Washington state, the scenic US Pacific Northwest.

I have installed Windows 10 as an update to Windows 8.1. It was running 4 BOINC tasks, including 2 CPDN tasks, plus a CERN Summer Challenge task outside BOINC. All BOINC taks restarted immediately after installation, then I had to reboot to start the Challenge task. I am no Windows expert, as I use Linux on two other computers, but having found Windows 8, soon updated to Windows 8.1, on a PC I bought from HP, I decided to try it and installed BOINC and Virtual Box, as requested by the CERN Projects.
Tullio

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I have installed Windows 10 on a spare laptop to see how it went. I did have some difficulty with the initial installation (technically an update to Windows 8.1, as Tullio rightly says) but I found a workaround on Reddit which was succesful. I made sure that Windows Update would only take effect on a reboot. And also, pretty important, I made sure that my AntiVirus (in this case AVG Free) was also set at If_Computer_Restart_Required, Complete_At Next_Computer_Restart because that too can force a reboot when not expected and destroy CPDN models. Otherwise, it seems to be humming along satisfactorily and has just complete a PNW model.

If you are worried about Windows 10 automatically downloading and installing updates (with model killing reboots) then you might want to read this article from the How-to Geek newsletter on how to turn off the automatic updates. You can find it at:

http://www.howtogeek.com/224471/how-to-prevent-windows-10-from-automatically-downloading-updates/

Hope this helps someone.

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I had a big Windows 10 update, 3915 files for a total of 1.8 GB. The PC rebooted at night and I had to rebuild the BOINC environment. No problem for 2 CPDN anz tasks, very long winded but all my Virtual Box using CERN tasks were powered off. I killed them, installed a newer Virtual Box release (4.3.30) and restarted them. The only project that gave me trouble was not a BOINC project, but the CERN Summer Challenge Competition. But finally I restarted even that. I also remade a Windows repair disc on a DVD, just in case.
Tullio

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A Windows 8.1 to 10 update went fine, but another Windows 7 to 10 update is going very badly. It suddenly decided it didn't like the Ethernet interface and the only option appeared to be a system restore, which it reported as having failed but then rebooted and reported as having succeeded: I now have to re-apply all the fixes for applications that don't work ...

... and then my first Windows crash, which starts with a sad-face emoticon - :( - there is, as with much else in modern life, a profound lack of seriousness about all this and, having fought the Microsoft corner against the anything-but-Microsoft brigade for years, I've had enough. If in time Microsoft vanish from the software landscape, it will be a fate richly deserved - as will indeed be ours!

If you go to the search panel at lower left type Win U. You will be able to change from automatic updates to updates after a notification. I suspend all BOINC projects before allowing an update. I also forbid the use of my PC to send updates to other users.
Tullio

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My experience parallels yours, Iain. My first update was on the 8.1 box and it was as slick as the 8-->8.1 update (on an i5 Haswell, 64-bit). There was one problem but it was so trivial that I no longer remember it.

Four updates from Win7 were another matter. (Two on i5, one i7, one Q9550, all 64-bit.) Each box failed in a different way. On one the Start button was inoperative. All failed to pick-up one or more settings from Win7. When forced, they tend not to remember, after reboot, that a change was made. I use "Auto-hide Task Bar" and had to manually reset it on all four of these updates -- on one, Win10 refuses to recognize the change. (Unfortunately, it is my general-purpose machine, an i5 3550 Ivy Bridge CPU on Gigabyte MoBo [all my machines are on similar-capability Gigabyte boards, so that should not figure in this problem].) One machine, on after-upgrade restart, lost an ANZ task which already uploaded six .zips; unfortunately, it wasn't noticed for several hours and, given that it was one of six active tasks, I decided to sacrifice the task to someone else's solution rather than use my external backup (either to rerun all six tasks or use the single-run-restore technique).

With all the 'fun' these updates gave me, I'm in no hurry to update my i5 laptop.

Haven't checked, yet, relative speed of CPDN tasks on Win10 vs. earlier life on each box . . .

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"We have met the enemy and he is us." -- Pogo
Greetings from coastal Washington state, the scenic US Pacific Northwest.

The regular UNEXPECTED_STORE_EXCEPTION crashes that made running BOINC impossible on that Windows 7 upgrade to Windows 10 stopped after unlinking and relinking a complaining OneDrive installation. Correlation is not causation but 12 GB of re-synching later it all seems to be working, as is BOINC - so far.

Got another update and a reboot, accepted by me. I suspended two vLHC tasks using Virtual Box but not the two CPDN ANZ tasks. Luckily, I found them only suspended.
Tullio

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Thanks for the update, Iain.

OneDrive isn't part of my problem(s). I don't use it. (I have no reason to use the 'Cloud' -- though I used to be in them for a living decades ago [weather reconnaissance, including typhoons -- great way to earn a buck!]).

Since my last post, the Q9550 box stopped honoring the "Auto-hide Task Bar" setting. No biggie, in that case, as all that box does is run an earthquake monitor (negligible CPU) and CPDN (or alternate when no CPDN work is available). It does reinforce, in my mind at least, Win10's weakness/ineptitude in honoring user's settings-preferences.


[EDIT] It might be coincidence, but, since updating to Win10, Internet connection times are slower. That's true across the board for my Win10 Desktop boxes. Both Vista boxes (mine and a friend's), as well as the laptop in Win7, continue to have normal response times. Anyone else experience slower Internet site connect times?

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"We have met the enemy and he is us." -- Pogo
Greetings from coastal Washington state, the scenic US Pacific Northwest.

I have turned off the permission to use my PC to send updates to others on the Internet. Have you?
Tullio

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Yes, along with most of Windows' snooping/reporting on my use of the OS. (All I allow is problem reporting.) However, I allow Windows to move updates over my in-house 'workgroup' -- saves bandwidth on my DSL Internet connection.

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"We have met the enemy and he is us." -- Pogo
Greetings from coastal Washington state, the scenic US Pacific Northwest.

After ignoring the pleadings of 'Windows 10' for nearly a year, I bit the bullet and updated both W7 home machines from the M$ site.

Three issues: First with some installed but incomplete auto-updates in Win7. One PC had to be rebooted to finish the updates because Win 10 would not install beyond 99%. A re-install afterwards went OK. Second, with our corporate version of antivirus/malware, that was not Windows 10 ready. This was removed partly automatically, and partly manually. Third with removing Spybot-SD, so that windows defender antivirus would turn on.

BOINC and CPDN seem to be happy. The only niggle was finding the short date for a UK setting defaulted to the US format mm/dd.

Until I can visit our IT team to claim a W10 friendly corporate anti-virus to use, is there any advice with using the M$ defender anti-virus? Or are there any better/preferred options? Anything else to turn off/on or watch out for in W10?

Back to the day job ...

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After ignoring the pleadings of 'Windows 10' for nearly a year, I bit the bullet and updated both W7 home machines from the M$ site....

I have been mulling this over with regard to upgrading my two BOINC-only PCs. The only one that worries me is my old reliable quad-core with 4GB RAM. I've heard practical advice that one should have at least 2GB just for the Win10 OS. I know it's kind of late to be asking this, but could I expect to run 4 CPDN tasks in this configuration?

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I have been mulling this over with regard to upgrading my two BOINC-only PCs. The only one that worries me is my old reliable quad-core with 4GB RAM. I've heard practical advice that one should have at least 2GB just for the Win10 OS. I know it's kind of late to be asking this, but could I expect to run 4 CPDN tasks in this configuration?

My BOINC/CPDN/home QX9650 machine is running at 4.5GB memory used out of 6GB installed. It has lot of other stuff running along, as well as CPDN. The identical Q9650 clone machine that SWMBO uses is running at 2.5GB memory used out of 8GB installed. Other than not running BOINC/CPDN the clone for SWMBO has the same load of iffy and M$ software/applications/stuff running. I.e. CPDN takes about 2GB.

So far, no W10 crashes or unexpected issues. That's a pleasant surprise, or infamous last words?

For yours with CPDN, 4GB is not out of the question, provided you don't have a load of other software widgets running at the same time. Good luck if you go ahead!

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hagar wrote:

For yours with CPDN, 4GB is not out of the question, provided you don't have a load of other software widgets running at the same time. Good luck if you go ahead!

Thanks for the feedback. I went ahead with the upgrade on this one and so far, so good. It's using about 2.75GB RAM with 4 CPDN models running and pretty much nothing else (which is okay on this one).

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Win10 has automatic updates. This article shows a way to manage the feature:
http://www.wired.com/2015/07/stop-windows-10-auto-updates/
This issue is a gray area for me. From an article I read, it seems the updates take effect on next reboot. (If a reboot is forced, it's bad news for CPDN folks -- unless Windows does a proper shutdown.) This feature means Patch Tuesday goes away -- hence my most common reason for rebooting also goes away. If you have Win10 experience, would you please tell us of your experience with auto-updates?

In reference to M$' arrogating to itself control of restarts for Win10 updates:
M$ claimed (falsely, in my experience) that it would not restart computers during normal duty hours, which it defined as 8-->5. A new option was discovered on the 'update' page, by accident, where we are now allowed to redefine our duty hours. Four of my win10 boxes were reset to redefine the duty day as 1200AM to 1200PM. Excluding the entire day should "fix" the problem …

Color me frustrated. The experiment failed. M$ rebooted this machine today a bit after 1500 (Pacific Daylight Time [BST-8]) Apparently they can't tell time at M$ campus. (Or they assume Midnight to Midnight passes without intervening time. [How nice it would be to use 24-hour clock!])

In addition, there is, in "Update settings" section, a statement: "Note: We'll check to see if you're using this device before attempting to restart."
More prevarication. Or, if they checked, they don't consider four continuously active climate models "using this device".

To re-purpose a line from Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Sonnet 43): How do I loathe M$? Let me count the ways …

If anyone found a way around M$'s arrogation, please post.

Otherwise, any suggestions for a workaround?

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"We have met the enemy and he is us." -- Pogo
Greetings from coastal Washington state, the scenic US Pacific Northwest.

My Windows 10 PC just rebooted after an update without any warning message. But I had only SETI@home and vLHC@home tasks on it, so no damage was done. I am running CPDN tasks only on my old Linux box, a SUN workstation of 2008 vintage, when they are available. Now it is running Einstein@home, both CPU and GPU tasks. I have installed on it a ATI/AMD HD 7770 GPU board and it works fine. The Windows 10 PC has a nVidia GTX 750 OC and it runs SETI@home GPU tasks.
Tullio

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Jim, Wouldn't you need to define the duty day as 1200AM to 1200AM? or 0000 to 2400 to prevent any reboot? If that was possible. 1200AM to 1200PM would just exclude the AM hours.

Could you define the duty day to all but 10 minutes, then have BOINC configured to only compute hours that exclude those 10 minutes. I'm not sure what version of BOINC is needed for that time configuration option. Of course it would just suspend computing and may or may not decrease the problems with task failures upon reboot.