On: The AARD Code and DR DOS (2021)

[duckqlz]

Actually it was shipped. “Microsoft disabled the AARD code for the final release of Windows 3.1, but did not remove it, so that it could have become reactivated later by the change of a single byte in an installed system.” [1]

[1] Schulman, Andrew; Brown, Ralf D.; Maxey, David; Michels, Raymond J.; Kyle, Jim (1994) [November 1993]. Undocumented DOS: A programmer's guide to reserved MS-DOS functions and data structures - expanded to include MS-DOS 6, Novell DOS and Windows 3.1 (2 ed.). Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-201-63287-X.

[gavaw → duckqlz]

Is it shipped if it cannot execute under any conditions? Philosophical question I'm afraid.

[codnee → gavaw]

The code? Yes

The feature? No

[zorked → gavaw]

The company that makes GTA was sued for content that was not accessible in the game.

[brookst → zorked]

Anybody can sue anyone for anything. I could sue Rockstar for not having enough nudity in GTA; that does not imply guilt or lawbreaking on their part.

The suit you mentioned was settled out of court for a tiny amount, basically nuisance value, with no finding or admission of wrongdoing.

[saagarjha → zorked]

They probably shouldn't have?

[jen20 → gavaw]

> could have become reactivated later by the change of a single byte in an installed system.

Is that not a condition under which it could be executed?

[Uvix → jen20]

Only if the application has code to change that byte. “It could be changed by a patch” doesn’t count as a condition under which it could be executed, because a patch can make any change it wants to. You wouldn’t say “there’s a condition under which Windows will wipe your hard drive and every visible network share” just because someone can write code to do that.