🚀 go-pugleaf

     I just discovered after twenty minutes of unpleasantness that
SETVER.EXE, a feature of DOS 5.00, is implemented via SELF-MODIFYING
CODE.  The SETVER command is used to fake out applications which check
the version of DOS.  It seems that, rather than maintain a data file
separate from the .EXE file, Microsoft has chosen to implement
SETVER.EXE as a program which modifies itself whenever it is executed,
so as to change a table that is part of itself.

     This is very unfriendly behavior for users who try to maintain
any sort of discipline to control viruses, or any of various other
sorts of discipline.  Virex-PC gave me multiple alerts telling me that
SETVER was trying to alter SETVER.  Since the syntax of SETVER is a
little peculiar and complex, I at first assumed that I had entered the
command wrong and was doing something improper and that Virex-PC was
protecting me from a mistake.  It took me a while to realize that
SETVER was REALLY trying to MODIFY itself and that Virex-PC was trying
to protect me from a technically legitimate but undisciplined
operation.

     Is anyone from Microsoft on this distribution list?  Would they
care to explain why they did such an undisciplined thing?

          Robert McClenon
          Neither my employer nor anyone else paid me to say this.