How To Install Two CLI FAH Clients

*** WARNING ***

To those expecting an interesting fun filled post, well, this isn't it. If you are looking for instructions on how to run two or more instances of Folding@Home on one computer then you are in the right place.

NOTE: Two instances of the graphical client can not be run on the same machine even if they are in separate folders. To run two, or more, instances of the FAH program on one computer will require using the CLI(command line interface) version of FAH. I believe you may still use one version of the graphical client, but all other instances must be the CLI version. All versions must have different Machine ID numbers and the -local switch needs to be added to the shortcut. These are set the first time you run the FAH client. The instructions below are directions on how to set up two instances of the CLI version. I have never used the graphical client so I have no experience setting that up. The CLI version has worked well for me. I like to be able to manually start and stop my clients not as services. This is more out of old habit than anything else. I do have one client that is actually running as a service, but all others I have to manually start. The instructions below will set up the clients to run as services.


1. Create two folders, one for each instance of the the FAH client program. The names of the folders in my example are FAH1 and FAH2 and they are located on my Desktop. They can be located anywhere you like though.

2. Next download a copy of the client and put a copy of the client in each folder.

3. Open up the FAH1 folder and Right Click on the client to bring up the options menu and then Left Click on 'Create Shortcut'. You will now have new shortcut in the FAH1 folder. We'll use this shortcut to start up and configure the FAH client.

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4. Right Click on this newly created shortcut and then Left Click 'Properties'.

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5. The window that opens up should open up to the shortcut tab by default. If it doesn't then select that tab. Now you should see a window with the name of the shortcut at the top. Below that you will see Target type, Target location and Target. We are interested in the Target field. In the 'Target' field you will see the directory where you put the FAH client. This directory and the file name itself will be enclosed in quotes.

"C:\Documents and Settings\Ken\Desktop\FAH1\FAH502-Console.exe"

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6. We now want to put our switches at the end of that line. The switches we will use are -forceasm, -advmethods, -verbosity 9, and -local. These need to be on the outside of the quotation marks and there needs to be a space after the last quotation mark and in bewtween each switch. When you are done adding the switches it should look like this.

"C:\Documents and Settings\Ken\Desktop\FAH1\FAH502-Console.exe" -advmethods -forceasm -verbosity 9 -local

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7. Now go ahead and double click on this new shortcut. Assuming this is the first time you have started the client it will start up and start prompting for configuration information such as your user name, team number etc. The two important ones, other than your user name and team 734 are the machine ID and whether you want to run the client as a service. Running as a service is good in that as soon as you boot the computer and load windows the client will be automatically started by windows. Also, when you shut down windows it will automatically stop the client gracefully. No fuss, no muss.

So you really want to answer only five of the questions:

User Name: Whatever your user name is
Team Number: 734
Launch automatically at start up...: yes
Change advanced options: yes <-- This will allow you to get to the following question. Machine ID: Choose 1 for the first client and 2 for the second All others questions you can hit enter to accept the defaults.

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8. Repeat steps 3 through 7 for the second client.