Abstract: There is disclosed a system for detecting and avoiding faults stemming from conflicts in hardware and/or software configurations in a computer system. The system comprises communications circuitry that, from time to time, automatically transmits at least part of the current hardware and software configuration data of the computer system to a remote data source capable of identifying inherent conflicts in the hardware and software configuration. The remote data source then transmits to the computer system software revisions that are capable of resolving the inherent conflicts. After the communications circuitry receives the software revisions, processing circuitry in the computer system modifies the current software configuration according to the received software revisions.

Abstract: A method for the configuration of peripheral adapters in computer systems. The method examines a flag in a Configuration Space of the peripheral adapter to determine if user-selectable configuration options are required for the peripheral adapter. If the flag is set, then a configuration file is retrieved and interpreted to determine how the peripheral adapter should be configured and to determine how the configuration options should be presented to the user. Such configurations options may be conditional and based on previous user selections. Once the user's selections have been made, the method updates registers in the peripheral adapter with the selected option values.