When Windows starts Boinc starts before my network card is activated, so I have to exit and restart Boinc manually. Is there a way to set a startup delay of say 5 minutes to allow Windows systems to start first? How?

According to the documentation for <start_delay>, the delay is introduced after the core client starts, and before the science applications start - which isn't much help with a network card issue, since it's the core client which does network comms, not the science application.

In Windows Vista, there's a useful startup option for services: "Automatic (delayed start)", but I don't know how to do that in earlier versions.

(Last time this question came up, Jord posted a link to How to delay loading of specific services, but I haven't needed to try it myself).

When Windows starts Boinc starts before my network card is activated, so I have to exit and restart Boinc manually. Is there a way to set a startup delay of say 5 minutes to allow Windows systems to start first? How?

Edit the BOINC service in the Registry and add a dependency for Netman. When BOINC installs it only creates a dependency for RpcSs, which doesn't delay it long enough for your card. Hopefully the Netman dependency will allow the card to start before BOINC does.

ok how do i do that?