Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!elsie!imsvax!ted
From: ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden)
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc
Subject: MS-Windows on Zenith-158/No Escape???
Message-ID: <617@imsvax.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 27-Sep-86 07:51:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: imsvax.617
Posted: Sat Sep 27 07:51:00 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 1-Oct-86 01:14:34 EDT
Organization: IMS Inc, Rockville MD
Lines: 23



Recently, I saw one of the worst PC nightmares I've ever heard of.  Users at a
client site had taken delivery four weeks ago of a Zenith 158 with Windows on
it and had been unable to use the machine for anything other than the 
Windows Reversi game;  Windows was all they could see on the machine no matter
what they did.  The machine could not be booted from a floppy (it had some
way of jumping to the autoexec.bat file on the hard disk, which I've never
seen before), and even after I got out of Windows via alt-space-bar (which the
client folks hadn't been informed of by the vendor) and DELETED the autoexec
file on the hard disk, the damned thing STILL behaved as if that autoexec
file was still there.  The only thing which finally worked was to simply
alt-space out of Windows and re-format the hard disk, after which the 158
behaved like an ordinary computer again.  

I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has a reasonably good idea of
what I was seeing and how it worked.  I personally know very little about
windows other than that it doesn't seem to work well without a mouse (I 
hate mice), that the mag editors all black-balled it, and that I would
heavily recommend its ABSENCE on any micro intended for serious use, based
on what I've seen.

Ted Holden,  IMS