🚀 go-pugleaf

jenk@microsoft.com (Jen Kilmer) writes:

>In article <rice.725054644@willow23> rice@zizania.cray.com writes:
>>jdp@osric.cs.odu.edu (JD Powell) writes:
>>
>>>...and lenient return policies of the vendors they deal with.  Please post 
>>>the names of these vendors for the rest of us....  Who are the good guys?
>>
>>Egghead Discount Software will accept returns of opened software.  I think
>>the limit is 30 days.  

>I don't want to cause a panic, and all resellers I've heard of are 
>very careful, but, btw, viruses are also spread via returned-and-
>re-shrinkwrapped software.

That has often been _said_ to be the case, but I think it's mainly a
theoretical possibility rather than a primary means of spreading 
infection. Of course it has happened here and there. But perhaps not
as often as people say or think... ?

>"Careful" translates to either "all returns go back to the manufactuerer"
>or "all returns are scanned for viruses before being resold" (I am referrring
>to undamaged returns).

>A not-very-common windows 3.0 setup problem is caused by the windows original
>disks being infected with a virus (microsoft is very careful about the
>"health" of the master diskettes and even duplicates disks on machines
>running xenix, so even if the duplicator gets infected it can't affect the
>MS-DOS-based or Macintosh-based software on the disks).  Each case we know
>about, the software had been installed previously on an infected system
>(and sometimes returned, re-shrinkwrapped, and re-sold). No such problem is
>known about windows 3.1. Windows 3.0 shipped on writable disks; windows 3.1
>(and the ms-dos 5 upgrade, and most new products being released) are shipped
>on "permanently" write-protected disks.  


Of course, backup disks and "backup disks" are not so 
write-protected... 


>From a support standpoint, this is seriously cool (unless the user cut
>a notch in a set of 5.25"s, no viruses, no accidently-deleted-the-file-we
>-need, etc :)

Just copy the disk and you have an infectable medium.