Resource Allocation Problem

[tmasters@kofax.com]

     We are nearing production release of a PCI adapter card product.  As 
     with any product, we are wary of the potential flood of support calls 
     we will get from customers during the installation of the board into 
     their system.  We want to be prepared to help them even if the 
     installation problems are not related to our board specifically, but 
     perhaps some other aspect of their system.
     
     There could be many scenarios, but the specific problem I'm imagining 
     are resource allocation problems resulting from NON-plug-and-play ISA 
     cards or other legacy devices.  Resource allocation goes smoothly 
     until our board is installed, then the camel's back gets broken.  Even 
     though we intend to fully follow the PCI spec and be plug-and-play 
     compliant,  if the system BIOS and/or OS are unaware of the legacy 
     device's resource usage, problems may occur.  Since everything worked 
     fine until our board was installed, guess who's going to get the call!
     
     I have seen some system BIOS's that have setup screens which allow 
     certain resources to be reserved for ISA, and I have heard of 
     something called ISA Configuration Utility (I don't know if this 
     exists anymore-if so, from whom?) which somehow does the same thing.  
     Windows 95's Device Manager allows you to modify the resource 
     assingments, but what if our customer is not using a plug-and-play OS?
     
     Is there a standard way to handle this problem?  It really seems to be 
     a system vendor problem, but is there anything an adapter card vendor 
     can do?  Any suggestions would be appreciated.
     
     Thanks,
     
     Tom Masters
     Kofax Image Products
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