Maybe just shelling out to DOS was enough
to refresh the system.
I've played around with the time issue a little more.
Shelling out to DOS from Xý4 doesn't cause the
clock to reset in Xy4's window. While you're in
DOS, you have to execute the TIME command
from DOS, then exit to re-enter Xy4. It is annoying
and easy to forget. I wonder if there is some kind
of way of fixing this -- or is it an XP problem, related
to suspend. It's quite amazing, but after all these years,
nobody seems to be able to make a suspend feature
in either a laptop or a desktop that really works!