I'm pretty sure this is correct.  Win95, by default, enables
"write-behind caching" for hard drives (the same as putting the drive
letter and a plus sign as an argument for SMARTDRV in Win3.x) meaning
that the actual write to disk can be slightly delayed until the computer
isn't too terribly busy.  The biggest risk that this creates isn't just
the possible corruption of a file that hasn't been completely written to
disk, but the directory entries not being fully written to disk to update
exactly where the files are being stored and how many sectors they take
up.  Once you have corrupted this directory information, you are putting
more and more of your files at risk of being overwritten and corrupted
every time you or Win95 writes to the disk from then on.

The risk isn't exceptionally great, since the delayed writes will usually
be completed before you could physically reach down to turn the power
off, but not always (ergo, it IS a risk).

-JOWj.

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"The Pledge of Allegiance says, 'With liberty and justice for ALL.'  What
part of ALL do you not understand?" - Rep. Pat Schroder.

On Mon, 9 Mar 1998, Donald Gaither-U52943 wrote:

> Hi,
>         Actually, you are both right.  Windows95 does save directly to
> the disk, but some programs will use multi-threading to make a copy of
> the file in memory, and then start saving it to disk.  This allows you
> to return to a useful state sooner, but it can cause data loss because
> it looks like it has completed saving when it really hasn't.  The
> process is the same as Win95 using a print spooler to bring you back to
> a useful state before it has completed printing.