BOINC is the backbone of numerous science research projects (a popular one is the SETI@home project). The key difference is that BOINC is a grid computing application (distributed computing). It uses wasted resources from an unlimited number of PCs across the internet (volunteer computing). It also offers distributed computing within a company network. InvisiTasking is a closed, single computer technology that does not communicate outside the computer and acts as the backbone of Diskeeper 2007. InvisiTasking is designed specifically for enterprise organizations, with a design focus on transparency of operation for applications used for business/security/productivity on a given computer. In short, they have different infrastructures and purposes.

BOINC also allows a system to run multiple BOINC-based applications concomitantly. InvisiTasking, for it's part, will behave similarly when other programs are built on that technology. Just as BOINC supports the SETI@home project as well as a project to aid in climate prediction, InvisiTasking will support simultaneous real-time defragmentation and, perhaps, a real-time anti-malware scan or file backup or database performance script.

For those, like myself, who contributed to the SETI@home project over the past years (there were 5.4 million volunteers), you knew that it used to run when your screen saver was initiated, much like a popular old Diskeeper feature. The brilliant folks on the BOINC project evolved their technology in parallel (though completely unrelated) with our brilliant R&D team here. The primary reason we evolved our older methodologies into InvisiTasking, is likely the same reason BOINC was introduced - to take better advantage of wasted resources -something screen saver mode was not effective enough at solving.

One thing we became aware of, in field testing, was that InvisiTasking was so resource sensitive that systems running BOINC applications took priority over Diskeeper's defragmentation. However, you don't need to choose between practical benefit for your computer and doing good for mankind.

If you are running SETI@hone or other BOINC applications, you'll want to make adjustments. There are two ways to tweak your computer to allow both programs to run harmoniously. The easiest (recommended) option is to alter BOINC. You can choose to operate as either a "Single User" or "Shared" rather than "As a Service" - and still use screensaver mode. If you do run it as a Service, you can edit your preferences to cap resources usage. BOINC also has a "snooze" button.

The other option (not recommended) is to make changes that alter InvisiTasking's behavior. If you do this, you are de-sensitizing InvisiTasking, so we recommend that you may want to consider disabling Diskeeper during certain periods using the graphical Automatic Defragmentation Timeline control. If you are a customer, Tech Support can advise you on this. Our FAQs may also include this information in the future.