This forum might not be the perfect place to ask this question but there doesn't seem to be a forum called "Windows: the dark side".<br>
I discovered this piece of weirdness after developing a Y2k capability tester for my company. The program runs from a floppy, executes a virus checker, tests the date rollovers, does a quick scan for a list of applications on the hard drive and writes the results to a file on the floppy. (Since I was testing dozens of systems, I wanted the ability to insert a floppy, run the tests, pull the floppy and look at the results later.) I was also interested in detecting viruses that might be missed by running the checker without a clean boot, so I had my program compare the contents of the floppy boot sector with the contents of an image file.<br>
Guess what... I found one. Everything seemed fine as long as I ran the program after a boot to "Command Prompt Only" but when I tried it under Windows, the alarms went off. My program informed me that the boot sector had been changed and there was a chance of viral infection. I checked the system with every scanner at my disposal and they all turned up negative. So I inspected the "suspicious" boot sector to see what had been changed. It was the OEM ID (4th - 11th bytes).<br>
I wrote a utility to do a little experimentation. I can set the OEM ID under DOS, write protect the floppy, view the original sector under Windows, remove the write protection and watch the OEM ID change as soon as I access the disk.<br>
I can't find any documentation on the reason behind this little Microsoft magic trick.<br>
Does Bill Gates feel that he must own EVERYTHING, including my floppies?<br>
If anyone has an answer, or even a comment, please respond.<br>
I discovered this piece of weirdness after developing a Y2k capability tester for my company. The program runs from a floppy, executes a virus checker, tests the date rollovers, does a quick scan for a list of applications on the hard drive and writes the results to a file on the floppy. (Since I was testing dozens of systems, I wanted the ability to insert a floppy, run the tests, pull the floppy and look at the results later.) I was also interested in detecting viruses that might be missed by running the checker without a clean boot, so I had my program compare the contents of the floppy boot sector with the contents of an image file.<br>
Guess what... I found one. Everything seemed fine as long as I ran the program after a boot to "Command Prompt Only" but when I tried it under Windows, the alarms went off. My program informed me that the boot sector had been changed and there was a chance of viral infection. I checked the system with every scanner at my disposal and they all turned up negative. So I inspected the "suspicious" boot sector to see what had been changed. It was the OEM ID (4th - 11th bytes).<br>
I wrote a utility to do a little experimentation. I can set the OEM ID under DOS, write protect the floppy, view the original sector under Windows, remove the write protection and watch the OEM ID change as soon as I access the disk.<br>
I can't find any documentation on the reason behind this little Microsoft magic trick.<br>
Does Bill Gates feel that he must own EVERYTHING, including my floppies?<br>
If anyone has an answer, or even a comment, please respond.<br>