Hi everybody!
Welcome to this LHC@home tutorial for Windows users. 
My name is Karolina. I am a student in the IT Department at CERN.
Today, I would like to show how you can support scientists in their quest for a better understanding of our universe just by offering the spare power of your processor. 
For this purpose we are going to use BOINC, which is a program that uses your computer to solve scientific problems. THe BOINC allows you to access many different volunteering cloud computing projects from all around the world, some of them help scientists working at Large Hadron Collider. The largest particle collaider, which is at CERN. At the end of this tutorial you will be able to run computational tasks for one of the LHC projects.

To begin we go to LHC@home website and choose the JOIN US tab. 
***First thing (1.)*** we are told to do is to install the BOINC program. 
For Windows you don't have to think which version of the program you need to install. By clicking here you will be redirected to the website with the latest stable version.

Now you can choose to install the BOINC program with or without the Virtualbox. 
For most of the LHC@home projects you need VirtualBox, so I will recommend to install the first package containing all required software (programs).
Don't worry if you have already the Virtualbox installed, the installation proccess will be also correct.

In order for VirtualBox to run you need the virtualization technology enabled on your computer. Consult on the VirtualBox website if you have any issues.
No matter which option you chose it will download the official client installer for BOINC. It installs both the boinc_client which is the BOINC client program runnning jobs and the boinc_manager which is a graphical user interface to manage BOINC. The installation proccess is similiar to other installations on Windows, but don't hesitet to contact us if you have any problems.



After installation the boinc-client should start when the machine reboots. It will start automatically and will be ready to use when you open the boincmgr.

Now you should be able to run the boinc client and the boincmgr,  but you are not yet running a  project. 
To change that, go to the LHC@home website where under the "Projects" tab you can find the list of projects related to CERN.
There you can read more about the purposes of each project and you can choose the one that interest you most. 

***Then (2.)*** go to the BOINC site of the project, choose "log in", create an account and fill out a form. 
With BOINC you can run more then one project at the same time, so I encourage you to sign-up for a several. 

By now you should have BOINC maybe with virtualbox installed on your computer and be a member of at least one project.


***The one last step(4.)*** is to connect your project account and BOINC. You can do that from the boinc manager. Start the boinc manager ("in that point I will show it on terminal"). The first time it pops out a window where you can choose project, find the one that you created the account for ("vlhcathome"), click next, read and agree for a terms of use, choose existing user and give the same email and password as you provided when you created an account for a project. 

Voila, BOINC should be now up and running. If you open the BOINC manager you should see tasks related to the project that you chose. From within the boinc-manager you can also add new projects and manage the ones you are in. More configuration options you will see on advanced view. You can, for example, limit the CPU, memory, disk or network usage according to your preferences. Many options can also be changed on the project's website under your account.
The important thing is to checked in the proccesor usage "Computing allowed"-"while computer is in use" and in the "Other options"-"use at most" limited CPU usage from 100% to for example 60%.
These options will help you to use BOINC without worrying about slowing down your computer or interfeer the other work.

Thank you for following this tutorial and I hope BOINC is now up and running for you.

If you want to know more about different BOINC options go to the official BOINC website ("show in the browser"), where you should find the information you need. We will also be very happy to assist you on the project forum (show the project forum). 

Goodbye!