DIMES installation walk through

Gilthanis

[H]ard|DCer of the Year - 2014
Joined
Jan 29, 2006
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DIMES is a non-CPU intensive program and can run alongside BOINC and FAH just fine without interrupting the other sciences. For those wanting to push the team in the DC-Vault and maximize their points, NCI projects should always be ran when possible. Some people will even load multiple virtual machines with NCI projects to make larger contributions. However, using VM's for this would certainly have an over all system impact that would possibly hinder CPU intensive apps.



Download your client of choice at www.netdimes.org



You must also have Java installed BEFORE installing DIMES.



Run the installer



Click Next



Click "I accept the agreement" and then click Next



Click Next again



If you want the Agent Service as an option, select it and then click Next. Otherwise, just click Next.



Click Next again



Here is where you need to decide how you want DIMES to startup. I recommend clicking the Start Agent (this lets you setup DIMES at the end of the installation) and then I prefer Start the Agent Automatically. (However, that would require someone to log into the computer in order to run.)



Tell your Firewall to Unblock



If this is the first time you are installing DIMES, choose I am a New User and click Next



Choose your user name and fill in the categories



If you were already a user like I was, choose "Yes. I have already installed DIMES Agents on other computers". Then click Next. Enter your User name and password and click Next.



Give your computer a name how you want it to show up within DIMES. Click Next.



Click Join group and you can manually type [H]ard|OCP or you can scroll down to it. There are many names and ours is located somewhere in the middle. It is faster to just type it. Click Next.



Now you are ready to make a few settings changes. Click on Agent => Properties.



Click on Network icon. Change the File Transfer Rate all the way to 51.



On the Settings icon, click Automatic update and uncheck Show splash screen when starting. Click OK



Press OK again and you should be done.
 
For Windows Vista/7 machines, make sure to turn off UAC if you want DIMES to run at startup. Otherwise you may have to manually start it after a reboot. I'm not sure if running it as a service is affected. I don't see why it would, but it would be good to watch out for.
 
Just recently built a new 64-bit Windows 7 box, so figured I'd install the 64-bit version of DIMES. I installed java, then went to install DIMES, but it kept insisting that java wasn't installed. Had a little think about it, then did some research. It turns out that the auto-detect on the java site only looks at your browser for bitness and even though I had installed W7-64, the default IE that runs is 32-bit. As a result, you get the 32-bit version of java and 64-bit DIMES doesn't like it.

TL;DR
Fix is simple; go to manual downloads and grab the 64-bit offline installer. Now 64-bit DIMES is happy. Job done.
 
You could also run the 64 bit version of IE under the start menu right? I have pretty well stuck to 32 bit version, so haven't tried the 64 bit.
 
Yeah, you have to install the corresponding version of Java for the version of DIMES you download. FWIW, I haven't noticed a difference between the 32 and 64 bit versions of DIMES, so when I install it on new systems I tend to just use the 32 bit version, saves having to install 64 bit Java as well as most people only ever use the 32 bit version anyway.
 
It looks like windows firewall will block inbound ICMP even if you have given the program send and receive in windows firewall.

I followed the guide here http://http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc972926(v=ws.10).aspx on my windows 10 machine, and enabled firewall. ICMP traffic was not blocked anymore. I will have to go back and do the same on the other machines now.

(edit) Further info: This fixed the issue with my W10tp x64, W8.1 x64, and W7 x32 installs. Should this be added to the thread for installing the client?

John

jfb9301 http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1041171558&postcount=293
 
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