nagy%43198.hepnet@LBL.ARPA.UUCP (03/28/87)
>While I'm at it, I'd like to complain about third-party vendors whose >installation kits directly patch HELPLIB.HLB. This tends to cause >system managers lots of pain the next time the system goes through a >major upgrade. DEC gives you a clean copy of HELPLIB, and you now >have to go through and remove the third party modules.... This is >pretty silly. The "correct" thing to do would be to let the manager >specify the library to add onto. Thus, if you want a "true" top level >command you can get it, but for those of us with segmented, local >systems, none of the standard system files get modified. I used to think that adding things to files like HELPLIB.OLB, DCLTABLES.EXE, STARLET.OLB, etc. was a bad idea. Of course, I started out in this under VMS V2.2 and a new upgrade of VMS wiped all local additions: of course it also wiped ALL additions made by DEC layered products. Now, we have lots and lots and LOTS of DEC layered products and it is not so simple (or nice) to require system managers to re-install the works after a VMS upgrade. Anyway, I noticed something when I did the VMS V4.4 upgrade (a fun, fun, fun couple of weekends) in that the installation procedure seems to make the effort to carry any "foreign" (i.e., non-VMS) entries in HELPLIB, STARLET and DCLTABLES over into the new versions. Did anyone else notice this? Is DEC maybe changing VMS upgrades to not require the re-installation of local changes to these files? I'd like to think so (I figure its being driven by the need to retain the additions made by DEC layered products).