Folding@home Portable

I like using my CPU power for the good that is Folding@home as you may know, but what happens when I’m out of the house, at uni? Well, my PC’s off and my PS3 folds merrily along doing just a single unit before it shuts down. Then what? Nothing’s folding, and RedStarGlow is powering ahead AGAIN (damn him!).

So now to fill the gap that’s being left from my i7 and PS3 being off. That’s where portable folding@home comes in, specially built by myself (ask google, see, nothing), simply launch it from your USB drive and off it runs, without installing anything on the host computer, perfect for when you can’t use your own machine.

It’s advisable that you run this only if you use other computers heavily, i.e. if you’re sat at one all day for work/uni, otherwise the WU’s are likely to expire and if that happens you’re not going to get any points.

Installation & Set-up

1. Download from Jas-n.com.
2. Extract to the root of your USB device. E.g. “X:\”.
3. Right-click on the shortcut icon and select properties.
4. Make sure the drive letter at the start of the locations are the same as where folding@home is located. e.g. If your USB drive is X:\, make sure the paths are as follows:
   - Target: X:\Folding@home\Program\Folding@home.exe
   - Start in: “X:\Folding@home\Work Units”
5. Press OK, and if the shortcut’s icon changes, you’re good to continue.
6. Double click the shortcut to launch it.
7. Right-click on the folding@home system tray icon and select configure.
8. Under the user tab, change your “User name” to the one you use currently, and the “Team number” to 78731.
9. Under the advanced tab, drag the “Checkpointing frequency” slider to 3 min (this makes sure the progress is saved every 3 mins).
10. Press OK.
11. Right-click the icon in the system tray then click Quit, this will save your settings so you don’t have to keep configuring when you lanch folding@home.

Running

1. Double-click on the folding shortcut (unfortunately there is no way to automatically start up the program).
2. Carry on with your normal duties.
3. When you’re done for the day/lesson, just remove your drive in the usual way, you don’t have to quit folding@home, because it saves every 3 minutes, you don’t have to worry about losing too much progress.

So there you go, one less excuse not to run folding@home, so get folding.

Before use it is recommended that you ask your employer (or similar) about running portable software on their machines.  The ZIP is virus checked but we cannot be held responsible for any issues with the file or its contents.