-=> Mocking Jack Pfisterer to Kurt Wismer <=-
   
 JP> c.  Manually copy the update files from the original, downloaded ZIP
 JP> file (on one of the hard drives) to the OS/2 AV diskette.  (Assume
 JP> that the files still within the .ZIP archive are unlikely to have
 JP> been contaminated.)
there are actually viruses that will insert themselves into compressed
archives, but they number in the ... um... 1 to 3 category i think...
you don't mention this, but your archive proram should probably be on
some protected floppy too...
or, i suppose that would be implicit by "not running anything from the
hard drive"...
 JP> Undetected viruses could remain on the diskettes or the hard drives
 JP> even with this procedure, but that risk should diminish over time as
 JP> the IBMAV capabilities advance and are applied to the system.
yup, that's the "programmerless" solution to making an immaculate boot
disk... i believe it actually is possible to create a perfectly clean
boot disk (at least on a dos machine - don't know about windows) by
writing an image of a clean boot disk to the floppy using low level disk
io (not interrupts) and then immediately jumping to ffff:0000 to reboot
the computer the moment the last write is complete - thus temporarily
halting the actions of any memory resident boot infector and giving the
user time to remove the disk and flip the write protect tab...
of course if someone were to make a bsi that polled the floppy disk
instead of waiting for dos accesses to it then even this would be
suspect...
but av companies seem to like to move away from clean floppy disks
entirely, even though there will always be some cases where they're
necessary, so i don't think we can expect such a program anytime soon...
i'd look into doing it myself but i have this sneaking suspicion that ms
would get after me for using their bootsector code and os in a third
party product without a licence to do so...
... i thought it was the metal bars that separated us from the animals...
--- TGWave v1.20.b09
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