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Date:	Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:15:48 -0800
From:	Ray Davison <raydav@charter.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: Running programs from a FAT-32 partition

Content Type: text/plain

J R FOX wrote:
> But, is it safe to *write* to that partition under our FAT-32 driver,
> or to run any programs from there ? Is there any real chance of data
> corruption in so doing ? I have a DOS word processor and a number of
> other DOS programs or utilities located there, on the Win side of the
> fence, and it would be convenient not to have to duplicate them
> elsewhere. I defer to your greater experience with this.

As far as I know FAT (16&32) are the only partitions what can be shared
between OS/2, Win. Linux will also share it.

At one time I had Netscape on FAT16 but OS\2 email kept losing folder
LFNs. Since then every OS/2 or Win Mozilla product has been on the same
FAT32 application partition. All Mozilla mail, news, bookmarks and
cache has been on another FAT32 data partition. I have probably had
twenty Mozilla apps available at one time. OS/2, Win and Linux have all
shared the same data.

My accounts payable is DOS. I have WP12 and MS Office 2K. The word
processor I use most is WP 6.2b DOS. For a long time they have been on
the FAT32 app partition. They are on a DOS menu and have run objects in
OS/2 and W2K.

The idea that Win is somehow going to hurt OS/2 - or DOS - is highly
overrated. Rather than hide things I done everything I can to have the
various OSs share everything possible: space apps and data. The only
problem I have ever had was the time I allowed a Win HDD utility work on
an OS/2 partition. It caused OS/2 to fail boot.

I have a C FAT16 that holds the boot utility and some DOS utilities. As
I said WP has been on the FAT32 for some time. Recently it had a
problem finding the spell check file. Just for drill I did a fresh
install on C. That installation works, but I have not established that
the problem is a FAT32 artifact.

IMNSHO, DOS programs work better on DOS. With FreeDOS working well, and
a serious boot utility, it is easy to have a native OS for each app.

And, my storage box used FAT32 for all storage partitions until
recently. The partitions got too big for FAT32 to use gracefully. The
partitions are now JFS; 100-200G each. That works well. And yes, it
runs W4. It just no longer has Win.

Ray

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