Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!rutgers!iuvax!bobmon From: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Why Can't Microsoft Write Protect Their Distribution Disks? Message-ID: <9257@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> Date: 31 May 88 19:04:25 GMT References: <101@dcs.UUCP> <696@holos0.UUCP> Reply-To: bobmon@iuvax.UUCP (RAMontante) Distribution: na Organization: Computer Science Dept., Indiana University Lines: 21 Just one more thought, lest the flames die down... All of the arguments _against_ the vendor applying write-protect tabs work even better as arguments against the vendor supplying some infernal SETUP program. Creating those little monsters takes _skilled_ labor, and is a waste for people who have to adapt to different situations. Even skilled people need write-protects, possibly they need them even more because they are more likely to "skip past" the low-level stuff and rush on to the conceptually interesting parts; a real novice, who generally knows he's a novice, will follow the step-by-step procedures. (I'm assuming that a well-written novice procedure will include write-protecting the disks and/or _not_ include overwriting them.) My Zenith release of MS-DOS _did_ have write-protect tabs, by the way -- and the stupid SETUP program had one redeeming feature, namely the option to not proceed with it. (None of the previous DOS releases had an autoexec.bat, let alone a setup program.) ~~ bob,mon "In this position, the skier is flying in a complete stall..." -M.S. Holden