Path: utzoo!attcan!telly!lethe!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!sdrc!thor!scjones
From: scjones@thor.UUCP (Larry Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: share.exe and large media
Message-ID: <158@thor.UUCP>
Date: 7 Sep 90 17:24:23 GMT
References: <1990Sep1.183023.24393@momenta> <442@beartrk.beartrack.com> <2363@cirrusl.UUCP>
Distribution: comp
Organization: SDRC, Cincinnati
Lines: 25

In article <2363@cirrusl.UUCP>, dhesi%cirrusl@oliveb.ATC.olivetti.com (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
> [ about SHARE.EXE being required for large partitions ]
> Would it be fair to say, then, that MS-DOS has a serious disk-
> corrupting bug, and SHARE.EXE is the bug fix?  A program that goes
> strictly through the MS-DOS system calls should *never* cause FAT
> corruption if the operating system is working correctly.

No, I don't think so.  SHARE.EXE is an attempt to modularize DOS so
that you can save precious memory by not installing parts that you
don't need.  If you don't install a part that you do need, it trys
to install it itself and complains if it can't so that you know that
there's a problem.  If you chose to ignore the warning, then you
deserve whatever happens.

Mind you, I DO think they could have documented the whole thing a
lot better, and trashing the disk is a rather severe consequence.
On the whole, though, I prefer that to simply refusing to boot or
adding code to all of the FCB functions to check for invalid usage
which would bloat DOS and slow it down as well.
----
Larry Jones                         UUCP: uunet!sdrc!thor!scjones
SDRC                                      scjones@thor.UUCP
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