inally, this option would only be necessary to address custom business applications that access the Real Time Clock directly for date information. Dell believes that the majority of commercial operating systems and application programs obtain date information through BIOS calls.Dell implemented three solutions. Two of these solutions are implemented in the BIOS. The third solution is a program that is installed within the config.sys file. This program runs at boot time and operates on the Real Time Clock through the BIOS calls. These options were based on a comprehensive technical analysis and consultation with industry experts and customers. All three of these solutions update the Real Time Clock to the year 2000 permanently and each solution addresses a specific scenario. The first solution is the modification to the Power-on Self-test, which is implemented in the BIOS. These modifications are designed to make sure that the correct date is passed to operating systems that retrieve the date at BOOT time and maintain it internally after that. The second solution is to make modifications to the BIOS. These modifications address those application programs that by pass the operation system to retrieve the date information from the BIOS. The last solution would be to implement an MS-DOS Patch program. This program would run each time the system is booted and addresses older systems equipped with a non-flash BIOS that cannot be upgraded economically. This would be implemented primarily on systems based on Intel 486 and earlier microprocessors. The MS-DOS Patch program corrects the Real Time Clock date through BIOS calls. Since this program runs at boot-time, the system must be rebooted after the century rollover so that the correct date would be implemented. This software utility should be used when running any of the following operating systems: MS-DOS (all versions) PC-DOS Windows 3.x Windows fo...
