SOT: w2k alters mbr

[jc at trillian.mit.edu (John Chambers)]

| Buying a new computer, (o joy, (note lowercase)),
| I get w2k with it.
|
| Being a curious sort I install it, everything
| works okay except that w2k sets itself (hda3)
| active, stealing the next boot.
|
| Is there any way to stop w2k from doing this,
| or to have grub fix it?

So they're still doing  this.   A  couple  years  ago,  I  found  the
paragraph  in  one  of MS's pages of fine print where they state that
Windows will check all the partitions during  a  boot,  and  any  not
containing a valid MS OS may be marked non-bootable.  This is to help
you,  of  course,  since  you  wouldn't  want  to  be   confused   by
accidentally booting a partition that doesn't contain a valid OS.

I also found another paragraph which states that by  running  the  MS
OS,  you  give  them permission to do as they wish to any file on the
disk.  So you should be glad  they  only  modified  the  master  boot
record.   By  running  W2K,  you've given them permission to wipe the
linux partition clean.  You might also make sure that you don't  have
anything on your disk that you don't want MS to use, since by booting
W2K you've also given them permission to send any of your files  back
to headquarters, to use as they wish.

Of course, if you  wanted  to  challenge  this  in  court,  it  would
probably be declared illegal. But you first make sure that you have a
couple million $ in your legal fund ...