SETI@Home Windows Client Release Notes Written by Charlie Fenton for U.C. Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory 2000. Version 2.04 3/29/2000 NOTES: If you have an old work unit in progress which has been partially analyzed by a different version of SETI@home, this installation will preserve the work unit, but will discard any analysis done so far. It will restart processing the work unit from the beginning (i.e., zero percent complete). SETI@home's data files have been renamed from *.txt to *.sah. ------------------------------------------- Internet Connection Retries ------------------------------------------- The new facility to automatically retry Internet connections may not work unless a recent version of Internet Explorer has also been installed. IE versions 4 and later work; we have not tested older versions. Note that the automatic retry feature only works if you have set SETI@home preferences to connect automatically. Otherwise, you must select "connect now" to retry. If you experience trouble connecting to the Internet with SETI@home,see the Frequently Asked Questions section in the help file for details. See the end of this document for a list of the changes since version 1.06. ---------------------------------------------------- Moving SETI@home's Data Files ---------------------------------------------------- Due to our new security measures to prevent falsified results, it is best to treat all the data files as a unit. If for any reason you must move or copy the data files, be sure to move them all together. The files affected include key.sah, state.sah, outfile.sah, result_header.sah, work_unit.sah and result.sah (not all of these will exist at any one time). You need not move user_info.sah, version.sah or "SETI@home ReadMe" together with the others. Some users download work units and return results from one computer, but process different work units on different machines, or save them for later processing on the same computer. If the computers are all of the same type and are all running the same version of SETI@home, then the procedure above will work. As an alternative, you may move only work_unit.sah or result.sah between different computers running SETI@home. If you move only work_unit.sah, SETI@home will delete and reinitialize the other files, so the work unit will be processed starting at the beginning. If you move only result.sah to a different computer, that SETI@home client will send the result to the server and then continue processing of its work unit (if it has one). IMPORTANT: Be sure to completely exit from SETI@home (by right-clicking on its icon in the System Tray and selecting Exit from the pop-up menu) before moving files. Selecting Exit from the maximized application's File Menu or Close Box does _not_ completely exit. The SETI@home screensaver will automatically restart the application when it kicks in, or you may restart it in the usual way by double-clicking SETI@home.exe. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What happened to the Peak Power and Best Gaussian meters? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The old Peak Power and Best Gaussian values on the display have been replaced by a graph. We found that the highest power peaks were due to radio interference from earth or satellites, so we have replaced that info with a new display which graphically shows how well the data fits the shape of a gaussian curve. While performing calculations other than curve fitting, the display shows the best Gaussian fit so far. To save time, SETI@home does curve fitting only when a pass through the data merits further study. This means that the Gaussian display will remain blank until "interesting" data is found. For some work units, the data will not cause any Gaussian curve fitting at all. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why are we requiring you to upgrade to SETI@home 2.0? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Before answering this question, we want to say thank you to our users (over a million of you!). You have made history with this, the largest distributed computing project ever, with more processing power than any supercomputer ever built. Unfortunately, there are a few individuals who have caused us problems. Some of them have been altering the data files to make it appear that they have found the highest values, so they can see their names on our web site. Not only is this fraudulent, but it threatens the integrity of the project. SETI@home is, after all, a scientific research project. While we will eventually screen out bogus results by reprocessing the interesting work units ourselves, this form of hacking hurts our project in many ways. In addition, some persons have altered the SETI@home client software to use faster math routines. While their intentions may be honorable (faster computing means more data processed), the scientific integrity of this project requires that the same processing be applied to all data uniformly. Since we can not verify that the results of these altered versions match those of the originals, they are a cause for significant concern. Due to the actions of a tiny percentage of our users, we have been forced to add protection against this sort of hacking. This is the main reason we must refuse to send new work units to older versions of the SETI@home clients. We apologize for the inconvenience, but find this to be necessary to protect the investment of you, our legitimate users in this project. Version 2.0 also fixes many bugs. We understand that during the transition, there will be a heavy load on our servers for downloading the new software. Please be patient and keep trying; the quality of the science will greatly benefit from the upgrade. ---------------------------------------------- Bug fixes and new features in Windows v 2.04: ---------------------------------------------- - Fixed a potential divide by zero error. - Installer automatically closes old client if running. - Fixed start menu short cut to help file. - Properly show 100% progress when work unit complete. - Synchronize output files when computer is shut down; this fixes one cause of progress occasionally being reset to zero. - Don't accumulate CPU time when computer is in low- power hibernate or standby mode. - Use multithread-safe libraries for better stability. - Changing "always run" option takes immediate effect. - When relaunching client, show progress and elapsed CPU time before doing baseline smoothing. - Don't delete old result.sah file on version upgrade. ---------------------------------------------- Bug fixes and new features in Windows v 2.03: ---------------------------------------------- - Screensaver now draws at 480X640 screen resolution ("immediate blanking" bug). - Fixed drawing problem when switching screen resolutions. - Write the state file no more than once per minute. - Improved logic to keep files in sync. This should reduce the likelihood of spontaneously resetting progress to zero. - Made autodialing and connection retries more robust. - Fixed bug where Connect Now menu was sometimes not enabled properly. - Don't show connection dialog if "connect automatically" set. - Setting "connect automatically" takes immediate effect (some old versions needed exit & relaunch of client). - Fixed a crash bug when memory or disk space was low. - Modified installer to fix occasional conflicts with existing setup.exe files. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bug fixes and new features in Windows v 2.02: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Fixed bug which allowed output file to grow above 32K. - Properly clear Gaussian threshold for each new work unit. - Fixed bug which caused long delays in drawing and made the client unresponsive to mouse clicks. - Eliminated possible problem with some proxies by tweaking the format of HTTP headers. - Changed the way we handle the state.sah file to solve a "can't create file" bug when used with SETISpy, SETIWatch and disk backup programs. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bug fixes and new features in Windows v 2.0 since 1.06: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Improved network retries. If SETI@home fails to establish network connection, it retries twice at 45-second intervals. If the retries still fail, it restarts the sequence after a 15 or 60 minute delay (only if Connect Automatically is set). This should help clients whose system is slow connecting to the Internet. (Retries may not work unless version 4 or later of Internet Explorer has been installed). - Better reporting of connection errors. - Better network protocol for updating user's totals at client when client sends results to server. - Enhanced support for Internet connections through HTTP and SOCKS proxies. - Improved validity checking, to reject corrupted or tampered files. - Server can send messages to be displayed by client. - Better numeric error detection. - Client returns power array summary for Gaussians. - File access retries for compatibility with ScanDisk, Defrag and FastFind. This may also give sleeping hard drives time to spin up. - Fixed minor bugs in measuring elapsed CPU time. - Miscellaneous improvements in drawing efficiency. - More reliable display of icon in System Tray. - Created Release notes.