PF>
  > Starting with one of the OS/2 2.1 fixpaks,t
  > ini files started working in a substantially different way
  > (that I disagree with;  but I digress). [...]
  >
  > The system never actually writes directly to the *.ini's
  > anymore,it keeps stuff in memory,  then,  when it decides
  > to take a dump,it writes them out to files like "os2.!!!",
  > then erases os2.ini and renames os2.!!! to os2.ini.
PF>

  Strictly speaking, this isn't quite what is happening.

  If you write a program that accesses the user or system INI files, then
  that program will access those files directly, and all changes will be
  reflected immediately.

  What has changed is *Workplace Shell*.  More specifically, what has
  changed is the way that objects of classes that descend from WPAbstract
  store their persistent data.

  In older versions of Workplace Shell, whenever an abstract object
  changed its persistent data, that change would be stored immediately to
  the INI file.  In OS/2 2.11 this was changed so that changes were
  buffered in memory.  Every 30 seconds or so, Workplace Shell then
  flushes these changes from the buffer out to the INI files.

  In parallel with this buffering, another change was made so that WPS
  wrote all batched changes to a a copy of the system and user INI files,
  and then moved those copies over the originals.  This reduces the window
  where OS2.INI and OS2SYS.INI are in an intermediate state, or are being
  modified, and thus the risk of INI corruption when a dirty shutdown
  happens.  Effectively, all of the WPS modifications to abstract objects
  made in the past 30 seconds are saved in one (semi-)atomic operation.

  > JdeBP <
___
 X MegaMail 2.10 #0:
--- Maximus/2 3.01