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From: MONAT%UOTTAWA@acadvm1.uottawa.ca
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: Re: WP viruses (PC)
Message-ID: <0001.9012122103.AA25390@ubu.cert.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 11 Dec 90 15:44:37 GMT
Sender: Virus Discussion List <VIRUS-L@LEHIIBM1>
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Approved: krvw@sei.cmu.edu

>VIRUS-L Digest   Monday, 10 Dec 1990    Volume 3 : Issue 198
>
>From:    jkelly@violet.berkeley.edu (John Kelly)
>
>SSAT@PACEVM.BITNET (Jean F. Coppola) writes:
>>Does anyone know of a WordPerfect virus that the document duplicates
>>itself within the document and if you try to go to the end of the
>>document it takes a very long time and then goes to the top of the
>>document...I have seen this happen 3 times to 3 people in the last
>>couple of days and was wondering if such a virus exists?
>
>I wonder, too.  I have seen this and another strange thing with
>WordPerfect:  floppy disks' FATs get completely scrambled.  It
>could be user error, but at least some of the half-dozen users
>I've seen this happen to are too competent to pull this sort of
>screwup on their own.
>etc......

We resolved 99 percent of the scrambled FATs in WP 5.0 this way:
disable the automatic save feature of WordPerfect. It is better anyway
to train users to back-up often their data under the name they want
instead of training them how to recuperate a backed-up file (they
never remember how to do that).

There were two situations causing the FAT problems:
1. Novell network, stand-alone WP 5.0 version, dos 3.3, clone PCs
   automatic back-up, workstations without hard disks (floppies only).
   (can't remember anymore if the back-up was creating a file on the
   server or on the user's floppy).
2. Stand-alone PCs (clones), dos 3.3, two-floppy version of WP 5.0,
   automatic back-up unto a floppy.

In both cases, we couldn't isolate the exact sequence of event leading
to the scrambled FATs but it is related to "asking WP to do to many
tasks at the same time" such as printing, saving and editing all at
the same time and maybe to the dangerous procedure of changing floppy
at the wrong time (such as when you're looking at a directory with F5
and changing floppy without going back to your document first).

Paul M. Monat     Lab Manager                   Phone: 613-564-6895/6500
                  Faculty of Administration       Fax: 613-564-6518
                  Canada    K1N 6N5            Bitnet: Monat @ Uottawa