> 1)  Shouldn't they be using a virus protection facility?  If not, why not.
> 2)  Virus protection programs will usually detect and clean up the infected
> modules.  Reformating the whole disk isn't necessary.

I think the issue is more that point of time restore capabilities
would be useful for more than virus prevention. In a programming
environment -- especially in low-level programming like robotics
or the like -- it's awfully easy to do something dumb and clobber
the disk by accident, or want to fall back to a previous release
if an install fails catastrophically. Another scenario where
point in time restores would be useful is in case of security
breakins on Unix systems; it'd be very useful to be able to do a
point in time restore from before the breakin and compare it to
the current version to determine what had been compromised.

It'd be a useful thing in configuration management as well. A
known working configuration at point A in time would be a
excellent starting place for custom installs (hit the basics, and
then overlay the custom stuff for this workstation, then do a
backup to freeze a known working configuration).

I'm scheduling a ADSM BOF at SHARE in Anaheim; I'll put this on
the list of stuff to be discussed.