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MANUAL.ACS
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1991-08-10
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PROGRAM MANUAL - Archive Converter/Scanner v2.0α
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Version 2.0α ▌▌▌▌▌ Copyright (c) 1990, 1991 Vikram Rao
Table Of Contents
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Agreement........................................1
Introduction.....................................2
Requirements.....................................2
Set-Up/Operation.................................3
Thanks...........................................5
Copyrights.......................................6
AGREEMENT:
~~~~~~~~~ This software may be freely distributed in the Public Domain so
long as the software and accompanying documentation remain unmodified and *NO*
fee of consideration has been paid to obtain the ACS software package. You
are to be held fully responsible IF any damage is caused by the use of this
program. If you use this program on a regular basis I would really appreciate
some feedback as to what should be improved/fixed for future releases.
- 1 -
Introduction to A.C.S:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ What the heck is A.C.S.? Well, A.C.S. is an acronym
for Archive Converter/Scanner. The purpose behind A.C.S. is to allow a SysOp,
or user, to convert and virus scan, any directory of archives without having
to manually do such a boring job. The task that A.C.S. performs can be a three
to five step process as follows: [ * Indicates definite steps ]
* 1] The archive is extracted to a work directory.
2] If McAffee's SCAN.EXE exists in any path directory the
archive's contents will be virus scanned.
- Any virus infected files will be eliminated by SCAN.EXE
3] If the file ACS.CAN exists in the same directory as ACS.EXE
and contains up to nine valid file names those files will
be destroyed in the A.C.S. temporary work directory.
* 4] Any internal archives will undergo steps one to five
* 5] The archive is re-archived to it's original directory
with file date and time intact.
How did A.C.S. come about? Two years ago I made a 50 line Basic program
to convert ARC/LZH and PAK archives to the then undisputed champion of archive
methods, ZIP. A short time later a friend of mine, and a SysOp of a BBS, showed
some interest in my little program but required a more enhanced version - one
that would also scan for the existence of viruses, and allow conversion to any
of five methods (ARC,LZH,PAK,ZIP,ZOO) not just to ZIP. Anyway, to make a long
story short, since that time A.C.S. has grown to support eight archive methods
(ARC,ARJ,DWC,HYP,LZH,PAK,ZIP,ZOO), and has continued to add many other new and
powerful features - too numerous to mention here. For a detailed look at how
A.C.S. has evolved over the last year take a look at the HISTORY.ACS file.
Requirements:
~~~~~~~~~~~~ This program may be run on any IBM class machine, excluding
the PC-Jr. The use of a hard drive is recommended as it will speed up the
conversion process, and allow LARGER files to be converted and scanned. For
example, if you are converting a 100K file - A.C.S. requires at least 250K of
free disk space to operate; thus on a 360K floppy a 100K file is about the
biggest archive you can convert. As far as free memory goes, you must have
enough RAM free to run your favourite archiver + 64K for A.C.S..
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Getting A.C.S. Ready For Use:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Setting up A.C.S. is a very easy task -
provided you have a path directory, or at least know how to get one 8), and
you know how to copy files.. After you have unarchived the ACS-v200.ZIP
archive, and read through this documentation, follow these set-up steps:
1] Simply copy the ACS.EXE file into one of your path directories.
2] Make certain that SCAN.EXE exists in any of your path directories.
- This is optional if you don't require your achives to be scanned.
3] Make certain that any archivers that you are planning to use exist in
any one of your path directories.
- All eight archive methods need not exist on your drive; just the
method that you are converting to and the un-extracters for the
archive types that you are converting from.
4] Pat yourself on the back - A.C.S. is ready to roll...
Operation Of A.C.S:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A simple information screen can be displayed by just
typing "ACS" from anywhere on your drive (so long as you have copied the
ACS.EXE into a recognized path directory). If nothing happens when you type
"ACS" at any prompt, then you have installed A.C.S. improperly (not in a DOS
path directory) and should refer to your DOS manual or follow the Set-Up steps
again. If ACS is installed properly you should see the following:
USAGE: ACS [Drive:\Path\]WildCard.Ext /[EXT] [OK]
═════
[EXT] -=> Is The Method To Convert Files To
(ARC|ARJ|DWC|HYP|LZH|PAK|ZIP|ZOO)
[OK] -=> Switch To Use For Non-Prompt Mode
Great! So what does all this mean? It's all quite self explanatory,
however, I'll go into more detail to help those who may need it.
[Drive:\Path\] - Is the drive and directory where the files to be converted
and scanned are located. ( Eg, "C:\ARCFILES\" )
WildCard.Ext - This can be any valid DOS file wildcard - and specifies the
actual file name(s) you want to be converted and scanned.
( Eg, 'LIBRARY.ARC' | 'DiskNo??.ZIP' | '*.ZIP' | '*.*' )
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/[EXT] - The value after the '/' must be one of ARC,ARJ,DWC,HYP,LZH,
PAK,ZIP, Or ZOO. The three character extension signifies
the method of conversion you wish - Upper and lower case
characters are treated equally.
[OK] - This switch is completely optional. If you include 'OK' at
the end of your command line for ACS.EXE, a faster batch mode
will be initiated. This means that A.C.S. will not require
any further input from you to operate and exit. For example,
if this switch is not used, the user is forced to push [Y]es
or [N]o to process the files, and <Enter> upon completion of
converting and scanning to return to the DOS environment.
With 'OK' at the end of the command line A.C.S. assumes that
everything is ok and proceeds automagically. - This is
obviously a handy feature for the SysOp running A.C.S. as
an event in the wee hours of the morning.
Example 1] ACS *.* /ARJ
- This converts and scans any files of the eight supported methods
that exist in the current directory to the ARJ format - A.C.S. will
require further input from the user to process the files and exit.
Example 2] ACS E:\FileArea\*.PAK /LZH OK
- This converts and scans all PAK files in the directory E:\FileArea\
to the LHA format. Since the OK switch exists, A.C.S. will not
require any further input from the user - Good for BBS events.
Example 3] ACS FileArea\* /ZIP OK
- This converts and scans any files of the eight supported methods
that exist on the current drive and in the directory \FileArea\ to
the ZIP format. Again, since the OK switch exists A.C.S. will
operate without need for further keyboard input.
Other Features:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Another feature of A.C.S. is the trashcan file. If a file
called 'ACS.CAN' exists in the same path as the 'ACS.EXE' file, and this file
contains up to nine legal file names (No * or ?) - A.C.S. will remove any
listed files from within all archives being converted. This is a very handy
feature for removing those pesky 'BBS.AD' files that many BBS's insert into
every archive on their BBS. A sample 'ACS.CAN' file has been included to
remove several known BBS ads from within your archives. To deactivate this
feature simple make sure that the 'ACS.CAN' file does not exist in the same
directory as the 'ACS.EXE' file.
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Also, if a virus IS found by scan the file 'ACSVIRUS.LOG' will be created
in the directory where the files being converted and scanned were originally
located. This log will contain information about any virus found by scan. The
final feature is that the <ESC> key can be pressed at any time causing A.C.S.
activity to be halted with an exit prompt.
A.C.S. returns a result code upon termination (natural or otherwise), they
are as follows:
0 = Success - No Problem-O
1 = Aborted by <ESC> from keyboard
2 = No archives to convert located
3 = The /[EXT] archiver does not exist
4 = The \ACS\ work directory already exists
5 = ACS or RAM has been tampered with or have a virus
99 = Unknown - Please Report This Error To Me!!!
( See Thanks Below )
A.C.S. has been tested with the following archive formats/versions.
(And versions 3.1v60 -> 7.6v80 of McAffee's virus scanner)
ARJ.EXE ................... v2.00 -> v2.20
DWC.EXE ................... v4.95A
HYPER.EXE ................. v2.50
LHA.EXE ................... v2.00 -> v2.12
PAK.EXE ................... v2.51
PKPAK.EXE/PKUNPAK.EXE ..... v3.61
PKZIP.EXE/PKUNZIP.EXE ..... v1.10
ZOO.EXE ................... v2.01
Thanks:
~~~~~~ I'll take this opportunity to thank all those who have supported
A.C.S. from it's early development stages. Many thanks go out to Ray Dyer,
Jim Duffield, Nick Itsou, Erwin Nanes, and Trevor Short for their support and
excellent suggestions. When A.C.S. was first released I requested comments and
suggestions to improve A.C.S. - and threatened that if I didn't receive any
feedback A.C.S. development would stop. It is thanks to these, and other
people, that I've continued enhancing A.C.S. to what it is today. I know that
A.C.S. has not reached it's potential yet, and I still need further comments
and suggestions to help improve future releases of A.C.S.. I can be reached
on: BlakStar Systems BBS (416)656-4532 1:250/646.0 The latest version of
A.C.S. should also be available on this BBS as well.
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Copyrights:
~~~~~~~~~~ In NO way, does A.C.S. change the coding of the software it
works in conjunction with. Many thanks go to the writers of the following
programs for creating excellent archive and virus detection utilities.
SCAN v7.60v80 - Copyright (c) 1989-1991 McAfee Associates
ARJ v2.20 - Copyright (c) 1990-1991 Robert K. Jung
DWC v4.95A - Copyright (c) 1986-1988 Dean W. Cooper
HYPER v2.50 - Copyright (c) 1989-1990 P. Sawatzki & K.P. Nischke
LHA v2.12 - Copyright (c) 1988-1991 Haruyasu Yoshizaki
PAK v2.51 - Copyright (c) 1988-1990 NoGate Consulting
PK[UN]PAK v3.61 - Copyright (c) 1986-1988 PKWare INC.
PK[UN]ZIP v1.10 - Copyright (c) 1989-1990 PKWare INC.
ZOO v2.01 - Copyright (c) 1988 Rahul Dhesi
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