Hello!
I've got one of the strangest issues I've yet seen.
Attempting to install Boinc on a Topjoy Falcon with an Intel Pentium silver j5005. I'm an administrator, UAC is disabled, yet when Boinc is installed the projects list comes up completely empty. Clicking on cancel and going back to the manager itself, I see that it claims to be connecting to localhost yet is unable to. Event log is likewise completely empty and devoid of any information. I have tried uninstalling and making sure to clean up all pertinent folders such as app data and program files. Knowing that it would likely do no good, I also tried temporarily disabling Windows firewall and Windows defender with the same results.

Oddly, Boincmgr.exe and Boinctray.exe are the only processes that I can see running, with boinc.exe not anywhere in sight - though when I manually run it from program files I get a bunch of information in the terminal before it closes.

I'm completely at a loss at this point. Where else should I look - not sure where to locate the log files necessary for troubleshooting - and what would cause this? It's attempting to connect to localhost - this is a completely fresh install of Boinc and there is nothing on the machine that should cause it to have an issue like this one. No programs or bloatware, not even any random driver issues.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

I have seen that happen, and the list eventually shows up. Maybe it has to download it from somewhere?

You could ask on the BOINC forum.
https://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_forum.php?id=10

The manager won't be able to display ANY information about what the client (boinc.exe), is doing or knows about, if boinc.exe isn't running, which seems to be the case.

The manager won't be able to display ANY information about what the client (boinc.exe), is doing or knows about, if boinc.exe isn't running, which seems to be the case.

Attempting to run Boinc.exe from program files results in a bunch of information being displayed in the terminal before it closes.

Is there anything I can do to try and fix this? Log files I should look at?

I have posted this question in the boinc forum as well and so far no replies.

I run Linux, and don't have that problem, so, wild guess, something "Windows" is getting in the way. Perhaps taking over the port between the two parts.