[Info-vax] How do I make zip, unzip etc. available to all users?

[Phillip Helbig undress to reply]

In article <mailman.4.1452062233.23756.info-vax_rbnsn.com at rbnsn.com>,
lists at openmailbox.org writes: 

> > Where to put your own system-wide images?  Your choice.  Put 'em on the
> > system disk.  Put 'em in the default [SYSCOMMON.SYSEXE] area (just hope
> > HPE/VSI doesn't replace them with a future ZIP).
> 
> That would be a good trick since this is a VAX hobbyist system ;)
> 
> SYSCOMMON.SYSEXE ...thanks. I'll look for it. 

No, no, no, no, no.  Never put third-party products on the system disk.
Never.  Never.  Don't do it.  Don't go there.  Don't even think about 
it.

The system disk should contain only DEC/Compaq/HP/VSI software, and 
closely related stuff like Rdb and the few things from the freeware 
collections which want to be installed on the system disk.  These are 
very VMS-specific things.

The best place for third-party software is on its own disk.  If you 
don't have enough disks for a dedicated DISK$SOFT, do something like

   $ DEFINE/SYSTEM/EXEC/TRANS=(CONC,TERM) DISK$SOFT DISK$USER:[SOFT.]

and then you have a virtual DISK$SOFT where you can put stuff.

Give W:RE access to the images and define symbols to point to them.  
Users can call the procedure defining these symbols, put it in their 
LOGIN.COM, or you can put it in SYS$SYLOGIN.