New version of SETIDriver....may be able to run on systems with Outlook and other problems...

[Engineer]

Click me!

Quote from Kinguni @ BBR:

Looks like SETI Driver has been updated to cure a bug in the Windows CLI. Checking off the "Force Idle Only" box should cure problems on systems running Outlook, as well as some systems using Windows XP. While it could slow processing time, it will allow for operation of the CLI on affected systems.

May get a few more systems running folks!

 

[TofBnT]

interesting, will check it out.

 

[RaySun2Be]

 

[Adul]

i used seti hide instead

 

[Coolkid]

Cool, that will be useful, because when i run a virus scan, S@H takes all the cpu power (even when set to low) and it takes forever to do the scan

 

[Assimilator1]

Cool! finally an answer!

SETI Driver v1.6.4.1
Adds a ?Force Idle Only? and ?runidle command line switch. This checkbox/switch will force the SETI Client?s processing thread to IDLE, which will force the client to run at the absolute lowest processor priority available. This will have two impacts. First, processing time may increase. Second, and more important, the off-line folders of Outlook 2000 and later and Windows XP and later should no longer lock up your system when SETI Driver is handling the client and this option is selected. This is a BUG in the SETI@Home WINNT command line client in that this client doesn?t do this itself. The default priority for the CLI is 4, which is Process Priority Class IDLE and Thread Priority Class Normal. What this checkbox does is force the Thread Priority Class to IDLE. Note: The SETI GUI client for Windows does this correctly by running at Process Priority IDLE and Thread Priority IDLE when running in background.

Thanks Mike Ober for this update so late in the game

 

[soni]

I tried this with SOB set on "True Idle" and for once my SETI process didnt get any CPU-time
That was a first

But I had hoped that I could run both at 50% CPU

 

[saabcaptain]

Can someone explain the change to me? I am running Windows XP and Office 2003 but had no problems with the old SETI Driver. Will downloading, installing the new SETI Driver, and selecting "Force Idle" make my WU calculations SLOWER or FASTER?

Thanks...

 

[SoulAssassin]

I would be interested in hearing any results on exactly how much slower it is. I can deal w a few percentage points but a 20 or 50% increase is major. SAV8 full scans take 3 days on my main rig (only a 40GB drive) when SETI is running so I've stopped scanning and just relied on realtime protection which isn't too much fun.

 

[Confused]

In theory, it shouldn't slow it too much. It just means that programs that used to run slowwwwww when Seti was running should run fast, and should complete quicker.

I reckon it will be 1-2% difference in speed, if there is any at all


Garry

 

[Assimilator1]

Originally posted by: saabcaptain
Can someone explain the change to me? I am running Windows XP and Office 2003 but had no problems with the old SETI Driver. Will downloading, installing the new SETI Driver, and selecting "Force Idle" make my WU calculations SLOWER or FASTER?

Thanks...

Read my quote from the SETIDriver site further up ,I've highlighted the relevant part

 

[saabcaptain]

Thanks assimilator but as I stated I had no problems with Office 2003 and the old SETI Driver. I don't know what "off-line" folders refers to and if that is something that was a problem waiting to happen. Anyone who can shed light on the old "bug"? I switched to the new SETI Driver version and so far I can't tell a difference but if there is a noticable slow down in completion of WUs I would like to switch back because I had no difficulties before.

 

[Darkone]

basically it means that you connect to a Microsoft Exchange Server and you use Offline Folders (ie it replicates what is held on the server, locally, for when youre not connected to the Exchange server). When the syncronisation of client and server occurs, Outlook will take hours to run through one sync as apposed to the usual 10 seconds or less....

Ive ALWAYS had this problem in the past, as Assimilator1 well knows, but now that I only use Mac OSX at work to connect to exchange, the problems has solved itself

This would have been great for me..... 3 years ago! lol

 

[Assimilator1]

Originally posted by: saabcaptain
Thanks assimilator but as I stated I had no problems with Office 2003 and the old SETI Driver. I don't know what "off-line" folders refers to and if that is something that was a problem waiting to happen. Anyone who can shed light on the old "bug"? I switched to the new SETI Driver version and so far I can't tell a difference but if there is a noticable slow down in completion of WUs I would like to switch back because I had no difficulties before.

*ahem* your still not reading it properly ,you keep mentioning Office 2003 ,but we're talking about Outlook 2000 etc

 

[saabcaptain]

*ahem* (and i say this in the NICEST posible way...) but you are reading it incorrectly in regards to Office 2003 (which includes Outlook 2003). See my bold highlights. No big deal as others posted the problem only occurs if I am using offline folders which have to do with Exchange, something I don't do as a homeuser. I switched to the new version anyway and see no slowdown so I'll keep it...

thanks for all the help guys, it was just confusing what they meant by off-line folders, and the extent of the potential slowdown of SETI Driver.

Originally posted by: Assimilator1
Cool! finally an answer!

SETI Driver v1.6.4.1
Adds a ?Force Idle Only? and ?runidle command line switch. This checkbox/switch will force the SETI Client?s processing thread to IDLE, which will force the client to run at the absolute lowest processor priority available. This will have two impacts. First, processing time may increase. Second, and more important, the off-line folders of Outlook 2000 and later and Windows XP and later should no longer lock up your system when SETI Driver is handling the client and this option is selected. This is a BUG in the SETI@Home WINNT command line client in that this client doesn?t do this itself. The default priority for the CLI is 4, which is Process Priority Class IDLE and Thread Priority Class Normal. What this checkbox does is force the Thread Priority Class to IDLE. Note: The SETI GUI client for Windows does this correctly by running at Process Priority IDLE and Thread Priority IDLE when running in background.

Thanks Mike Ober for this update so late in the game

 

[Coolkid]

Originally posted by: SoulAssassin
I would be interested in hearing any results on exactly how much slower it is. I can deal w a few percentage points but a 20 or 50% increase is major. SAV8 full scans take 3 days on my main rig (only a 40GB drive) when SETI is running so I've stopped scanning and just relied on realtime protection which isn't too much fun.

Yes!, I was having that exact problem.
The new version of SETIDriver fixes it, and i havent noticed any major slowdowns in my WU times

 

[Assimilator1]

saabcaptain
Oopps ,my bad ,forgotten that Office included Outlook!
Glad Darkone cleared it up for you

 

[Ben98SentraSE]

This is great that they finally found the problem.

Now the question is can this be done with Flexinstaller? I DO NOT want the SETI icon in my end users tray. Flexinstaller was my answer but with the Outlook 2000 problem (which most of my end users use) I made the decision not to run it on any of those machines. Recently that had dwindled my work fleet down so far (from like 40ish to like 5 machines) that I decided maintaining this lowly fleet wasn't worth it anymore and I turned off SetiQueue on my desktop machine at work and now only process Seti here on my home box only.

Can I do this with Flexinstaller? If not, I still may be SOL on SETI for now, maybe until BOINC comes out. Thanks to Assimilator1 for sending me a private message on this.

 

[screw3d]

Everytime when explorer crashes, the SETI Driver icon would disappear from the system tray although it is still running. I need to manually end process and start SETI driver again for it to display in the system tray. Would they ever fix this or could I do this on my own?

 

[Assimilator1]

More answers needed
No probs Ben ,good to see ya

Btw re flexi-installer ,couldn't you just swap the executeable?

Oh yeah ,& Ben ,get those 5 rigs crunching! *gets whip out*....*crack* ,that'll teach ya!
hehe

 

[Ben98SentraSE]

Assim1- I thought it was SETIDriver that fixed this and the winnt commandline exe didn't change? Flexinstaller doesn't use SETIDriver, does it?

 

[Shuxclams]

Version 1.x of the FlexInstaller was to have a similiar function to SetiDriver but since development of the flexinstaller was stopped (v0.9 beta) awhile back it would have to be taken up by someone else.



FlexInstaller v0.9BETA










SHUX

 

[Assimilator1]

Got ya Ben ,thought SETIDriver was in it.

I'm sure there are other scripts etc to do this..........

 

[Ben98SentraSE]

If there are scripts I can use with Flexinstaller to get this working with both types of priority at IDLE and keep it that way even after restarts of the client and rebooting the PC, then I would be happy to put it on all my machines at work again. This would probably be in the neighborhood of 100WUs a day. Motivation?

 

[Assimilator1]

We gotta get this sorted!:Q

I've called in for reinforcements