Patent ID: 7558958

Claim:
A method of booting a consumer computing device having non-rewritable memory, writable non-volatile memory, and random access memory (RAM) via a network server, comprising the steps of: executing an initial program loader (IPL) stored in the non-rewritable memory within the device, the IPL decompressing a boot program loader (BPL) from the non-rewritable memory and storing the decompressed BPL in RAM; executing the BPL, the BPL validating a first signature of a network program loader (NPL) stored in the writable non-volatile memory, the BPL further decompressing the NPL when the first signature can be validated and storing the decompressed NPL in RAM; executing the NPL to initialize a network connection from the device to the network server, the NPL further downloading a run time image of an abbreviated operating system from the network server, the NPL validating a second signature of the abbreviated operating system; and executing the abbreviated operating system when the second signature can be validated.