Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!ginosko!uunet!wugate!wucs2!wucs1!dale
From: dale@wucs1.wustl.edu (Dale Frye)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: What files MUST be in the root directory?
Message-ID: <945@wucs1.wustl.edu>
Date: 11 Aug 89 17:59:07 GMT
References: <189@nisca.ircc.ohio-state.edu> <1588@unccvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: dale@wucs1.UUCP (Dale Frye)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Washington University, St. Louis, MO
Lines: 38

I have moved everything possible out of the root dir. I have a second
partition on the hard disk that is write protected. I put command.com
and all device drivers there (except the device driver that enables
the second partition of course!). I modified the names of autoexec.bat
and config.sys in the operating system so that they are now in a
subdirectory on C:. The full pathname must be the same length as the
original name so I have A\acadbf.bat and A\cwcc.sys. Where A is a
one charater subdir name. The name of my subdir is ASCII value 255
. This displays as a space in a dir listing. This keeps most
people out. I also mark the subdir as hidden. The autoexec (acadbf.bat)
file has one line: @d:\A\a1.bat .  I keep all the programs on drive D:
(the second partition that is read only) and let the students use C:
for temp space.  If C: is clobbered then all I have to do is boot a floppy
and reformat drive C:. This takes all of 1 minute or so.

Problems:
 Some programs require COMMAND.COM to exist on C:\ when they shell to DOS.
(EX. Kermit) I keep a copy of command.com there just for this purpose. It
is marked hidden and readonly. The reason I put command.com on drive D: is
to give it max protection from viruses. The command.com on C: is not used
very much.

The format program copies the modified system to a floppy ( /s option).
A copy of the original operating system must be copied back on to the
floppy. COPY is not good enough. I wrote some programs that will copy
the system tracks of a floppy and save them to a file and to copy that
file back to the system tracks.

Some editors don't like  255. SideKick and PCTools work fine. 
SideKick Plus refuses to let me use it. 




Dale Frye