[HM] Re: File Format Fiasco Follow-up

[Florin Alexander Neumann]

On Saturday, Oct 11, 2003, at 08:44 Canada/Eastern, MUG NEWS wrote:

>   > (Incidentally, I'm willing to bet you don't have
>   > an OS/9 machine in your office, but an Mac running
>   > Mac OS 9. OS/9 is an operating system developed by
>   > Microware and it is a completely  different kettle
>   > of fish from the Mac OS
>
> How much was that bet?
>
> Wrong: OS 9.2 installed from Apple's commercial instal CD

You said: "[...] arriving back at my office with OS/9 machine [...]". 
OS/9 and Mac OS 9 (including versions from 9.0 to 9.2.2) are two very 
different operating systems. So, FWIW, I did win the bet. And I 
mentioned this to point out -- in a roundabout sort of way -- the 
importance of posting correct and accurate details, if you expect to 
get useful answers. "OS/9" and "Mac OS 9" (or "Mac OS 9.2") may seem 
similar, but saying the former when you mean the latter is like saying 
"Beijing" when you mean "Washington, DC". And, incidentally, if you are 
running 9.2, you probably should update to 9.2.2 (the updater is 
available on Apple's support site).

> Except files transferred from any of the 20 student iMacs,
> to the instructor's via the "Common Folder" (over a Novel Network)
> are rendered useless.

This shouldn't happen; IMHO, your Novell Netware is incorrectly 
configured; perhaps Novell Native File Access for Macintosh isn't even 
installed. Have an earnest heart-to-heart with your sysadmin.

>>  under OSX the Mac can't even
>>  recognize or open its own files.
>
>   > Nonsense.
>
> Many of the files open into the wrong program or don't open
> at all except from within the applications. [...]

You described a situation in which you couldn't open on a Mac running 
OS 9 files created on a Mac running OS X. To conclude from this that 
"under OSX the Mac can't even recognize or open its own files" merits, 
I believe, this qualification.

Now, if you have problems opening files, post the details, and we'll 
see if anyone here can help you. But you must be aware that it's highly 
unlikely it's an OS X bug -- such a bug would have been repeatedly 
reported by now, since it's one of the most common user operations.

f