Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!nosc!ucsd!ames!ncar!oddjob!kaon!nucsrl!jln
From: jln@eecs.nwu.edu (John Norstad)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: System 6.0 bug (feature?)
Message-ID: <10330020@eecs.nwu.edu>
Date: 22 Aug 88 17:34:56 GMT
References: <9846@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Organization: Northwestern U, Evanston IL, USA
Lines: 21

INIT 31 skips INIT files if either bit 7 or bit 14 is set in the Finder
flags.  Bit 14 is the "invisible" bit.  Bit 7 is the "cached" bit.  The
use of the cached bit is an optimization.  When INIT 31 sees a file of
type INIT, cdev, or RDEV, if it can't find any resources of type INIT in
the file, it sets the cached bit.  The next time INIT 31 runs it sees
the cached bit set, and skips the scan for INIT resources.  

I agree with the other people who responded to this query.  I suspect that
Apple is now refusing to execute invisible INITs as an attempt to foil
viruses.  For example, Scores uses invisible INITs.  Unfortunately, Scores
also has copies of it's INITs on visible files, so this trick doesn't foil
Scores.

I don't really object to this new "feature", but it would have been nice
if Apple could have documented it.

John Norstad
Academic Computing and Network Services
Northwestern University

Bitnet:    JLN@NUACC
Internet:  JLN@NUACC.ACNS.NWU.EDU