Patent ID: 7562368

Claim:
A computer system comprising: a computer located at a first site and including a central processing unit (CPU), a driver, a memory, and a first operating system for operating said computer, said memory including a universal bit reader, and said driver including input means for receiving an input data file in a format that is compatible with a second operating system and non-compatible with the first operating system; and a universal driver server located at a second site remote from the first site, connected to the memory of the computer via a network, and including a series of programs in a format compatible with the first operating system; wherein the CPU includes processes for using the bit reader to read said non-compatible input data file and transmitting said input data file, in bit form, to the universal driver server via the network; and wherein the universal driver server includes means for receiving the transmitted input data file, and a process for (i) based on bits read in the received data file, identifying the second operating system, (ii) activating a corresponding operating system, corresponding to said second operating system, on the universal driver server, and (iii) performing operations on the received data, said operations including read/write operations to/from a disk, to make the data in the received data file compatible with the first operating system; wherein the universal driver server includes (i) a universal bit reader, (ii) an applications database including a plurality of applications in a plurality of formats compatible with a plurality of operating systems, (iii) an OS database having a plurality of operating systems, and (iv) a table identifying a plurality of applications pointing to programs formatted in different operating systems; and wherein the universal driver server a) sends the bits from the user computer to an operating system identifier to identify the first operating system; b) activates an operating system, corresponding to said first operating system, from the OS database; c) activates a driver having said corresponding operating system; d) reads data from and writes data to said disk; e) runs a given application on the disk using said corresponding operating system to generate an output file, including the step of sending data from the given application to the activated driver; f) processes the data from the given application through a reader information unit in the activated driver to read the data; g) after the data are read, sends the data to an accessor; h) reformats said output file to be compatible with the second operating system; i) sends the reformatted output file to the user computer; and j) searches the applications database for one or more programs of the given application in a format or formats compatible with the second operating system.