The operating system does not guarantee the write order for multiple-sector write operations. If an application requires several sectors to be written in a specific order, the operator should issue the sectors as separate synchronous-write operations. Setting the Write-Through flag does not affect any previous write operation. That data can remain in the buffers.

When the application cannot handle a critical error that occurs, critical-error handling can be reset to the system. This is done by having DosProtectFHState turn off the fail/errors bit, and then reissuing the I/O operation. The expected critical error recurs, and control is passed to the system critical-error handler. The precise time that the effect of this function is visible at the application level is unpredictable when asynchronous I/O operations are pending.

The file-handle-state bits set by this function can be queried by DosQueryFHState.

Named-Pipe Considerations

With DosProtectFHState, the inheritance (I) bit and Write-Through (W) bit can be set or reset. Setting W to 1 prevents write-behind operations on remote pipes.