aclin@blackjack.dt.navy.mil (Charissa S. Aclin) (09/14/90)
This posting is for Mac users who are installing System 6.0.5 on a IIfx. Once you have installed the system software and tried to access applications such as MS Word, PowerPoint, etc., you may notice that the applications will not open. If this is the case, check your System Folder and look to see if you have a copy of Gatekeeper Aid (it will probably be the first file if you view by name). If you do have a copy of it, then take it out of the system folder, and reboot. You should be able to access the applications (Word, PowerPoint) without any problem. C.S. Aclin aclin@sushi.dt.navy.mil
chrisj@ut-emx (Chris Johnson) (09/15/90)
In article <aclin.653328962@blackjack> aclin@blackjack.dt.navy.mil (Charissa S. Aclin) writes: >This posting is for Mac users who are installing System 6.0.5 >on a IIfx. Once you have installed the system software and tried >to access applications such as MS Word, PowerPoint, etc., you >may notice that the applications will not open. If this is the >case, check your System Folder and look to see if you have a >copy of Gatekeeper Aid (it will probably be the first file if >you view by name). If you do have a copy of it, then take it >out of the system folder, and reboot. You should be able to >access the applications (Word, PowerPoint) without any problem. > >C.S. Aclin >aclin@sushi.dt.navy.mil I hate to say this, but I feel I'm entitled to under the circumstances: This posting is for Mac users who use any software. Please remember that it is always important to use the latest versions, and that bug reports without version numbers are nearly useless. Before concluding there's a problem with any product, make sure you are using the current version. Having gotten that public service message out of my system let me explain what's going on with the aforementioned IIfx vs. Gatekeeper Aid problem. The aforementioned IIfx user is almost certainly using Gatekeeper Aid version 1.0 which has not been the current version since mid- to late- December of 1988 when version 1.0.1 was released. Version 1.0.2 has since been released (August 5th) to make further improvements. If you use Gatekeeper Aid, but do not have version 1.0.2, please upgrade as soon as possible. If you have Gatekeeper Aid 1.0.2 and you've encountered problems, please let me know and I'll gladly attempt to correct them. The tedious details follow: Gatekeeper Aid 1.0 was released in early December of 1988 to deal with the WDEF A & B (and hypothetical related viruses) which were able to bypass Gatekeeper's conventional protection mechanisms. It was written in a couple of days, and it then spent a couple more days in a highly abbreviated testing program. A few problems were caught and fixed in that time, but within a bit more than a week version 1.0 was released with a clean bill of health from me and my testers alike. Normally, I wouldn't consider such an abbreviated testing program to be reasonable, but there was an *immediate* and critical need for a tool that could properly combat WDEF and it's many dangerous side effects. That combined with favorable reports from the testers, made it seem appropriate to release 1.0. Almost immediately after it appeared in the real world, however, evidence of a bug began finding its way to me in my mailbox from various concerned people all over the net. People with Mac IIcis couldn't launch some programs under MultiFinder, people with SE/30s encountered similar (but less frequent) problems, and no-one could Get Info on their Finder without promptly crashing their Macs. All of these are bad things, and I set about finding the problem. Within a few days I'd found and fixed this problem (and a couple of considerably less important ones), and had sent it out for testing. This time the testing process was longer and included a number of the people who had initially reported the aforementioned problems, just to make absolutely certain that they'd been fixed. Still, a fix was badly needed so testing only went on for about five days, at the end of which a considerably improved Gatekeeper Aid was released, dubbed version 1.0.1. Based on the symptoms described by the Mac IIfx user at the start of this article, I believe that they have version 1.0, and would not have had any problems had they actually upgraded to 1.0.1 when it was released. The upgrade was, of course, FREE. :-) So version 1.0.1 corrected all the bugs in version 1.0, and was actually available within 7 days of the release of version 1.0. Unfortunately, this meant that it was released just before the beginning of the Christmas holidays, and a great many people missed it completely for one reason or another. That was the state of play until August 5th of this year when I finally managed to release version 1.0.2 of Gatekeeper Aid. Because most of the shortcomings and bugs in version 1.0.1 were terribly difficult to find or relatively insignificant, I had an opportunity to run a proper testing program on 1.0.2 which lasted seven months, and involved testers all over the world. I refused to release version 1.0.2 until I got a clear indication from all of the testers that the problems they'd encountered in the previous version were fixed, and it took me every bit of those seven months to track them all down. Most of the "bugs" were actually not bugs at all but conflicts with algorithms in other company's INITs and printer drivers, by the way. As has been said before, it's not enough to be compatible with the Macintosh; you have to be compatible with every INIT, cdev, and whatnot that's ever been released for it, too, and that can be quite a trick in some cases. In any case, version 1.0.2 was finally released early last month, and has proved remarkably (but not completely) trouble free. [ Of course, you can only fix the bugs you know about, and you only know about the bugs you and your testers find, so, no matter how hard you try, you can't be certain that your *apparently* bug free software is actually bug free until you release it to the real world. ] So, a message to all Gatekeeper Aid users: If you don't have version 1.0.2; get it. If you encounter bugs, please let me know about them so I can try to get them fixed in the next version. New versions of Gatekeeper Aid are always sent to the info-mac archives and to the comp.binaries.mac newsgroup. For reasons unknown to me, Gatekeeper Aid 1.0.2 took about 20 days to appear in comp.binaries.mac, causing it to actually appear *after* Disinfectant 2.1 which was released two weeks *later* than Gatekeeper Aid 1.0.2. This is mysterious, but, in any case, 1.0.2 did *eventually* find its way into distribution, so please upgrade if you haven't already. Notices of Gatekeeper Aid updates are, as you'd expect, also posted to the comp.virus newsgroup. In case you've wondered, all versions of Gatekeeper Aid are effective against the CDEF virus that appeared a number of weeks ago -- I'd have mentioned this sooner and more prominently, but there was no real need since all Gatekeeper Aid users were already protected. Oh yes, this reminds me: Have you ever wondered why Gatekeeper Aid has had such a rough life, while the other INITs (like Dave Platt's fine Eradicat'Em) have been apparently trouble free? Although I haven't seen the code for any of these other INITs, I believe the answer is a relatively simple one: Gatekeeper Aid was designed from the start to be a general purpose, run-time virus scanning and removal platform. This means that it does a lot more than is strictly necessary in order to merely hunt and kill WDEF infections. It is setup in such a way that it can scan *any* file for *anything*, which means that Gatekeeper Aid is much more invasive than other WDEF-oriented INITs. This, in turn, means that the compatibility problems facing it are wider-spread and more difficult to find and fix. In the long run, this flexibility will certainly prove to have been worth the trouble. In the short run, my apologies for any problems you may happen to encounter. My apologies, too, for the length of this article, but if you actually read this far, I trust that you found something of interest in it. :-) ----Chris (Johnson) ----Author of Gatekeeper ----chrisj@emx.utexas.edu
Adam.Frix@p2.f200.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Adam Frix) (09/17/90)
Chris Johnson writes in a message on 14 Sep 90: CJ> I hate to say this, but I feel I'm entitled to under the circumstances: CJ> CJ> This posting is for Mac users who use any software. Please CJ> remember that it is always important to use the latest versions, CJ> and that bug reports without version numbers are nearly useless. CJ> Before concluding there's a problem with any product, make CJ> sure you are using the current version. CJ> Having gotten that public service message out of my system let CJ> me explain what's going on with the aforementioned IIfx vs. CJ> Gatekeeper Aid problem. CJ> The aforementioned IIfx user is almost certainly using Gatekeeper CJ> Aid version 1.0 which has not been the current version since CJ> mid- to late- December of 1988 when version 1.0.1 was released. CJ> Version 1.0.2 has since been released (August 5th) to make CJ> further improvements. CJ> If you use Gatekeeper Aid, but do not have version 1.0.2, please CJ> upgrade as soon as possible. If you have Gatekeeper Aid 1.0.2 CJ> and you've encountered problems, please let me know and I'll CJ> gladly attempt to correct them. CJ> The tedious details follow: CJ> Gatekeeper Aid 1.0 was released in early December of 1988 to CJ> deal with the WDEF A & B (and hypothetical related viruses) CJ> which were able to bypass Gatekeeper's conventional protection CJ> mechanisms. ummm..Chris, I hate to say this, you being the one who wrote GateKeeper and all, but I feel I'm entitled to: don't you mean that GK Aid 1.0.1 was released in December, _1989_? (Not 1988.) That's when WDEF became the rage on campus sites all over... --Adam-- -- Adam Frix via cmhGate - Net 226 fido<=>uucp gateway Col, OH UUCP: ...!osu-cis!n8emr!cmhgate!200.2!Adam.Frix INET: Adam.Frix@p2.f200.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG
chrisj@ut-emx.uucp (Chris Johnson) (09/20/90)
In article <71355.26F6CF31@cmhgate.FIDONET.ORG> Adam.Frix@p2.f200.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Adam Frix) writes:
<
<Chris Johnson writes in a message on 14 Sep 90:
<
<CJ> Gatekeeper Aid 1.0 was released in early December of 1988 to
<
<ummm..Chris, I hate to say this, you being the one who wrote GateKeeper and
<all, but I feel I'm entitled to: don't you mean that GK Aid 1.0.1 was released
<in December, _1989_? (Not 1988.) That's when WDEF became the rage on campus
<sites all over...
<
<--Adam--
Yipes! You're absolutely right, I should have said 1989... I was either
(a) being stupid, (b) mistyping, or (c) temporarily confusing it with
Gatekeeper which was almost released in '88. Offhand, I think it was 'b',
although 'a' is a strong contender, too. (Or I might have just forgotten that
it's currently 1990. :-)
So, let it be known that Gatekeeper Aid was written in late December of 1989,
not 1988 as my much abused brain indicated in that previous posting.
With abundant confusion,
----Chris
----chrisj@emx.utexas.edu