From: "steve ginter" <steve.ginter@canrem.com>
Subject: list of known bugs in
Reply-To: "steve ginter" <steve.ginter@canrem.com>
Organization: Canada Remote Systems
Distribution: comp
Date: 10 Jan 93 12:21:18 EST

I found the following message posted on my BBS.

-Steve

===========================================================================
 BBS: CRS Premium Bulletin Board - USR Dual St
Date: 01-08-93 (13:38)             Number: 9465
From: MITCHELL HALPERIN            Refer#: NONE
  To: ALL                           Recvd: NO
Subj: PKZIP 2.04c BUGS               Conf: (448) R-PKWARE
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have encountered the following bugs in the first few hours of usage of
PKZIP 2.04c.  I reported them to Mike in technical support at PKWARE.
He was already aware of some and confirmed the others.

1.  Disk spanning ("-&") will not work if you have "ZIPDATE=latest" in
pkzip.cfg - all you get is the help screen.  (This one drove me crazy
for an hour!)  It won't work even if you try to override zipdate=latest
with "-o-" switch.

2.  If you "quick" format an already formatted disk with "-&f" you get a
corrupted FAT and an error message.  Mike suggested using "-&w" to
erase previous files instead of reformating.

3.  Using "COMPRESS=maximal" in pkzip.cfg doesn't work.  You need to use
"maximum."  This is a typo in the docs.
      ^^
4.  Disabling EMS usage with either "-+" (or EMS=disabled in pkzip.cfg)
also disables XMS.

5.  Emptying all files in a directory using "-m" will also delete the
directory itself.  I.e. "pkzip zipfile \test\*.* -m" will delete the
"\test" directory.  This was reported in v1.93a over a year ago.
PKWARE stated this was an "undocumented feature" and would be switchable
in v2.0.  It is neither docmented nor switchable in v2.04c and can lead
to nasty surprises if you are unaware of it.

6.  Using "-rp" or -rP" will store the names of the subdirectories as 0
byte files resulting in an incorrect file count.  They can't be deleted
with "PKZIP -d" but don't extract with PKUNZIP.  This is also an
acknowleged bug in v1.93a.

7.  EMS usage remains unreliable and can cause crashes and loss of data
when used with Windows, OS/2 2.0 and even some versions of QEMM.
I lost a QWK mail packet this way.  The docs warn of possible problems
with EMS but because is used by default, you don't find out about them
until too late.  PKZIP 2.04c is the only program of many that has given me
problems with EMS under OS/2 2.0.  If PKWARE couldn't get it to be reliable
they should have left EMS support out or at least not made it default.

These bugs (Mike prefers to call them "anomalies") were found with only
a brief testing of PKZIP 2.04c and there are likely to be others.  I
can't comprehend how they could have gotten by an even minimally
competant beta testing let alone the last year's efforts to make PKZIP
"the most bug free and best release ever."  It's even more incredible
that some of the known bugs in 1.93a were left unfixed!  What has PKWARE
been doing this last year?

---
Steve Ginter
e-mail: steve.ginter@canrem.com

 * SLMR 2.1a * Booze and math don't mix. Please don't drink and derive.
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