Folding Forum

What is the best/easiest way to reconfigure my Folding@Home installations so that they do not automatically start upon booting, and instead allow me to manually start them? I need these instructions for both Windows and Linux.

For the record:

• I have installed Folding@Home in the default/recommended manner in both OS environments of my dual-boot desktop machine: both Windows 10 and Ubuntu.
  
• Although I do my best to minimize switching between my Windows and Linux environments, I want to avoid a situation whereby a brief visit to one OS will result in a WU assignment that will stall and maybe expire once I switch to my other OS. I have tried pressing "Finish" in FAHControl and waiting for the current WU to complete and then for all folding slots to pause before switching to the other OS. But I see that this "pause" state is not persisted after booting back into the previous OS.
  
• On my Windows 10, I tried looking at the "Startup" settings, but did not see anything FAH-related. I assume that I can simply reinstall Folding@Home (and then choose "Start manually. (Expert)"), but I prefer to avoid doing so. Likewise for Linux, although I do not recall if I saw similar startup choices there.

In Windows, there simply is a shortcut in C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
To delete it should do the trick. You also can reach that folder by typing shell:startup in the Run box (Windows-R).
For Linux, I don't know if there is such a workaround.
But for both systems, you can add an option "pause-on-start" = 'true' in the slots (in FAHControl) and they will always be in a paused state when FAH starts.

The 'pause-on-start' parameter can be added to each slot, and that only affects that slot. The parameter can also be added as a "Extra Client Option" under the Expert tab and that will apply to all slots running on that client installation. This works for all OS's - Windows, Linux and OS X.

Thank you so much, ajm and Joe_H!

Yes, I see now that switches, flags, options are documented (in general) inside the Configuration Guide FAQ, and 'pause-on-start' (specifically) also here.

On Linux, you can run systemctl disable FAHClient as root user or with sudo. The systemctl command can also be used with enable, stop, start, restart, reload or status.

Another easy option is in Task Manager/Start-up set HideConsole to Disabled. This works for me on both of my folding desktops running Windows 10

You're focusing on the wrong aspect of FAH. Use FAHControl. That's how you manage FAH's workload.

You can pause any WU or all WUs. You can FINISH one WU or all WUs. Allowing FAHClient to start automatically means absolutely nothing if FAH has been told not to process the active WUs or download new assignments.