*** Tim Hutzler wrote in a message to Scott Mcnay:
TH> BIOS is not bypassed in *any* operating system. BIOS is how
TH> universal software is able to work with a particular
TH> hardware design of which there are many when it comes to the
TH> IBM compatable. For instance - all vidio cards nowadays come
TH> with their own BIOS. Bypassing it would cripple any new
TH> design features post operating release.
The BIOS must be used, obviously. to boot up, but it's my understanding that 
once an operating system goes into protected mode, it uses it's own drivers 
and ignores the BIOS, in general.  It may use it for something like video 
mode switching, but it has to drop back to real mode for that, and a 
real-mode virus would get cut off again as soon as the system switched back 
to protected mode.  A paranoid OS author would check the real-mode interrupt 
vector to ensure that it was still pointing at ROM code.
The VGA BIOS pretty much only supplies functions useful for text-mode 
operation; graphics-mode operations provided by the BIOS are notorious for 
being masochistically slow.  Much the same applies to other BIOS code; it's 
used for boot-up initialization, but the OS will generally not recognize any 
device that it does not have it's own driver for.
TH> The best standard feature I've seen that has slowed the
TH> spread of a computer virus is the boot sector inhibit
TH> switch. Not much help for those who copy a lot of EXEs
TH> around, though. [grin]
I prefer the option for selecting the boot device, where you can have the 
system boot automatically from C, and ignore A.  The boot virus protection 
interferes with certain programs, such as Win95.  The boot drive option is 
what I use when I build a computer.  After my first time trying to figure out 
why Win95 kept locking up while installing, I have avoided the virus 
protection option.
--Scott.
--- timEd 1.01
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