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From: shadow AT shadowgard DOT com
Organization: Shadowgard
To: opendos AT delorie DOT com
Date: Sun, 30 May 2004 14:56:07 -0700
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Subject: Re: DOS that can read NTFS/XP paritions?
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On 30 May 2004 at 19:05, Michal H. Tyc wrote:

> > The definition files now each require their own floppies. Basically,
> > the first one loaded after the program won't fit on a 1.44 along with
> > the program (much less an OS). And the others are too big to fit on a
> > floppy with the others.
> 
> > In the order you have to feed the floppies in...
> 
> > 5-23-2004  23:16       1,117,130  SIGN.DEF
> > 5-23-2004  23:16       1,279,405  SIGN2.DEF
> > 5-24-2004  15:40         498,021  MACRO.DEF
> 
> > So I have a boot floppy, the F-prot program floppy, and the three
> > definition floppies. All write protected except when I update them at
> > home. :-)
> 
> Hint: make two archives (e.g., ZIP; even if other compressors can give
> somewhat better ratio, PKUNZJR is probably the smallest decompressor):
> one with SIGN2.DEF, the other with other definition files and F-PROT
> itself). Set up a RAM disk in your CONFIG.SYS -- you can safely assume
> that the machine has enough RAM, if it is able to run WinNT. Then
> uncompress everything onto the RAM disk in AUTOEXEC.BAT, taking care
> about disk changes. Depending on DOS version (size of kernel files and
> command processor) used and other tools (CHDSK/SCANDISK etc.) you need
> to include in your set, you certainly can fit everything on three or
> even two floppies. All the above should save some time at boot, as
> decompression is almost instantaneous on the modern machines, while
> floppies are as slow as they always were.

Not worth the extra hassles in doing updates. I frequently have to do 
a quick update of F-prot (just in case) and then copy the files to 
the floppies just before going out the door. The bit of extra time 
reading in the defs and swapping floppies is negligible compared with 
all the zipping and unzipping, etc. 

Besides, it can take hours to check a large drive on a slower 
machine. So the floppy time isn't significant.


--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com