Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!linus!mbunix!jcmorris
From: jcmorris@mitre-bedford.ARPA (Joseph C. Morris)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: WARNING  Microsoft C V5.1 Setup  WARNING
Message-ID: <30515@linus.UUCP>
Date: 29 Apr 88 16:04:28 GMT
References: <1455@slvblc.UUCP>
Sender: news@linus.UUCP
Reply-To: jcmorris@mbunix (Morris)
Organization: The MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA.
Lines: 18
Keywords: write notch
Summary: Thanks, vendors for not thinking.

In article <1455@slvblc.UUCP> slvblc!dick@ucscc.UCSC.EDU (Dick Flanagan) writes:
>
>Even though I am 100% to blame for not following the cardinal rule of
>write-protecting all original diskettes, I really do wish Microsoft
>wouldn't offer a default that, if accepted, destroys the very files you
>are trying to install.

Well...yes, you should have copied the disks, but I think that Microsoft
(among far too many others) shares much of the blame by distributing its
products on floppies which have a write notch.  Whatever its other irritating
habits, IBM at least uses diskettes which don't even have a write notch, and
some other vendors send out diskettes with a write-protect tab installed.

[Note to any vendors reading this newsgroup: that's a HINT, I say a HINT!]

If the distribution diskettes had been write-protected then maybe someone
at Microsoft would have found the problem in the usoft C 5.0 (I think) which
wrote on the last distribution diskette no matter what you specified.