ts@cup.portal.com (Tim W Smith) (02/16/90)
Master Tracks Pro is a nice program with obnoxious copy protection. The copy protection is the kind that allows you to install two copies on hard disks. It appears to work by creating an invisible file that records the blocks that MTP occupies. If you make a copy, this no longer matches, and it won't run. I've found a couple of ways to deal with this. 1. During installation, it checks to see if the floppy is write protected. It won't let you install from a write protected floppy ( it needs to write to the floppy to keep track of how many copies you've installed on hard disks ). However, it only checks the write protect status of the floppy once. If you pop the floppy out and write protect it when you get the SFPutFile dialog, you can still install without losing one of your installations. Note that you must pop the floppy without the Mac knowing about it. Use the eject hole, not the eject button in the dialog. An alternate method is to write protect the floppy when you insert it, but have a piece of paper covering the hole so that the drive reports that the disk is write enabled. Slide out the piece of paper after MTP checks the write protect status. 2. Make a 200k partition with HD Partition from SUM. Install MTP on this partition, using the methods in #1 to avoid losing an installation from the floppy. Now, when you want to make a copy of MTP, use Disktools or something similar to copy the whole partition. Or use ResEdit to make the file that HD Partition creates visible, and then the Finder can be used to copy it. Since you have made an image copy of the partition, it will not trigger the copy detection in MTP. Tim Smith