🚀 go-pugleaf

buhr@umanitoba.ca (Kevin Andrew Buhr) writes:

> For one thing, if a boot sector virus infects your system on start up,
> it won't survive the OS/2 startup process.  You may get the "Your
> computer is stoned!" message, since this is displayed (randomly
> approximately one out of every eight times in many cases) before the
> operating system is loaded.  HOWEVER, OS/2's own floppy disk device

A minor nit picking - Stoned displays the message only when you are
booting from a floppy. It is unlikely that OS/2 will be often booted
from a floppy...

> In summary, the worst you can expect is your system simply not
> working.  An infected OS/2 system generally won't infect new floppy
> disks unless you use the special "DOS from Drive A" sessions with an
> infected boot floppy.

There is one more danger. If the virus is Michelangelo (which -is- a
Stoned-like virus; it is even a Stoned variant) and the current date
is March 6 - bye, bye hard disk, regardless of the operating system
installed on it... :-)

Regards,
Vesselin
- -- 
Vesselin Vladimirov Bontchev          Virus Test Center, University of Hamburg
Tel.:+49-40-54715-224, Fax: +49-40-54715-226      Fachbereich Informatik - AGN
< PGP 2.1 public key available on request. > Vogt-Koelln-Strasse 30, rm. 107 C
e-mail: bontchev@fbihh.informatik.uni-hamburg.de    D-2000 Hamburg 54, Germany