thanks, I cant cut pins, customer would notice. I am using a IC socket, so I was going to use circuit trace repair strips to jumper 2 & 4 under the socket. hidden by socket and chip. and its not really modifying the existing board, its just adding to it. this is a example circuit to show my work, I dont wanna show any errors if possible. I was just wondering what would happen if the MCLR pin, even though MCLR is disabled, would cause the code/program to do weird stuff.

I dont want to turn it on till I know for sure as I only have 1 of this chip right now.