<<"This means any stable network using Windows NT or Windows 95
networking, when it buys a new computer and puts it on the network, will
suffer corrupted data."

I trust someone more knowledgable than I on such matters will put this in
its proper perspective.>>


It seems to me that there are a number of inaccuracies in the IW article:
1) The article says that "...an essential BIOS call to lock file
access...". File locking is not, and never was, a BIOS function of any
kind; it is accessed via the standard INT 21H DOS-service interrupt. The
actual lock-tracking was done by the SHARE.EXE TSR under DOS and 16-bit
Windows, and the VSHARE.VXD virtual device under Windows for Workgroups
and Windows 95. The BIOS doesn't know anything about files, much less
file locking; it knows about disks, ports, interrupts, and other hardware
things.
2) The article talks about "...the removal of file locking support for
DOS and 16-bit applications...". That's not what happened. For
compatibility reasons, SHARE.EXE was removed from the OSR2 release of
Windows 95. The VSHARE VxD is alive and well in OSR2 (a 14,926-byte file
named "VSHARE.VXD" dated 24 Aug 1996 11:11:10AM for those who care).
Since the file is exactly the same as the VSARE.VXD file that comes with
Win95 based on a byte-by-byte comparison, I think it's safe to assume
that VSHARE provides the same locking facilities under OSR2 that it does
in Win95.
3) The article's "big issue" appears to be its claim that "In OSR2 they
did not disable the call. It's just not reliable anymore, so sometimes
you'll get a success message when in fact the lock request failed....".
This seems *extremely* unlikely; as mentioned, the VSHARE.VXD that comes
with OSR2 is exactly the same file as the original Windows 95 version, so
it doesn't seem reasonable that the functionality has changed.
4) The article's conclusion that "This means any stable network using
Windows NT or Windows 95 networking, when it buys a new computer and puts
it on the network, will suffer corrupted data" is out to lunch for the
same reason.

What *has* changed is that DOS-*mode*, not "DOS applications", has lost
its SHARE.EXE support. Specifically, an application that will not run
under Windows 95 "normal" mode, but requires that you "Restart the
computer in MS-DOS Mode", will not have the SHARE.EXE TSR available under
OSR2. However, that computer will also not be participating on the
network, unless you also load DOS-based network drivers. In which case,
you have nothing more than a DOS machine anyway, so why do you have
Win95, much less OSR2 with the FAT32 that DOS cannot comprehend, loaded
in the first place?

I guess the article seems to be making much ado about
not-nothing-but-pretty-close. I realize that The Little Cringe needs
something to write about, but I think they reached a little too far on
this one.

If you're interested in the MS information, take a look at
http://www.microsoft.com/kb/articles/q161/6/19.htm

Steve