On Thu, 30 Jun 2011 08:41:05 -0400, Shmuel Metz (Seymour J.) wrote:
>
>>people who picked them up plugged the devices into office computers.
>>And if the drive or CD had an official logo on it, 90% were
>>installed.""
>
>A large share of the blame goes to the monopoly software vendor that
>wrote code to automatically execute files on removable media.
>
Don't overlook collusion by that vendor's customers who welcome the
behavior and impel the vendor to support it.
And the E-commerce culture where users can complete some electronic
transactions only by using that hazardous OS. And employers who
require forms completed and documents processed using applications
available only for that OS.
Spontaneous symmetry breaking.
But for some faint hope:
Big Blue offers staff Apples
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/30/ibm_staff_get_macs/
A few years ago, I assembled a software product installation
package on CD-ROM. I tested the installation from Solaris and
OS X. Worked fine. I hoped for the best from Linux. I even
tested it superficially from Windows XP. I was satisifed. I
handed it off to an independent tester, who promptly complained:
"When I insert the disk, I get a prompt, 'Where do you want
the media files on this disk saved?' How should I answer
this prompt; there are no instructions?"
That hadn't happened to me; must have been a configuration difference.
So I tried to bypass the prompt by doing some research and supplying
an AUTORUN.INF file (admitting defeat) to automatically open the
"Start Here.html" file in the root. Couldn't make it work. Syntax
errors, whatever I tried. Finally, I stumbled on letting
AUTORUN.INF start AUTORUN.BAT which launched "Start Here.html".
This leaves a comatose CMD.EXE window lying around until the
user exits the browser. But I declared victory and got out.
It continues to work fine with no adverse interactions on other
OSes.
-- gil
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO
Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
