Patent ID: 8302091

Claim:
A method of booting a computing system, the method comprising: constructing a second bootable image on a storage medium remotely accessible by the computing system, using a server computer, while the computing system is operating in a first operating environment in association with a first bootable image, wherein the storage medium is not local to the server computer such that the second bootable image is constructed on the storage medium without the second bootable image having to be downloaded from a storage medium local to the server computer onto the storage medium remotely accessible by the computing system; customizing the second bootable image, without using the resources of the computing system, so that the computing system can operate in a second operating environment in association with the second bootable image, when the computing system is directly booted from the second bootable image stored on the remotely accessible storage medium which is sharable with other computing systems; disassociating the computing system from the first bootable image; and associating the computing system with the second bootable image stored on the remotely accessible storage medium, wherein the constructing, customizing, disassociating and associating are performed by the server computer remotely coupled to the computing system and the storage medium such that the computing system does not perform the constructing, customizing, disassociating and associating so that the customizing is performed by the centralized server without interfering with ongoing operation and functionality of the computing system booted from the first bootable image, while the second bootable image is being constructed, wherein the constructing of the second bootable image is accomplished, without powering down the computing system, by way of at least one of file replacement, file creation, and file modification of constituent file system of the first bootable image for the purpose of activating or deactivating system settings and thereafter configuring runtime parameters associated with the computing system such that the second bootable image includes a file system and constituent configuration data to provide a new operating environment for the computing system, and wherein the disassociating comprises dismounting the computing system from the first bootable image and the associating comprises mounting the computing system on the second bootable image.