Patent ID: 8230394

Claim:
A method of managing data settings of an operating system of a computer entity, comprising by the computer entity executing a main program component of the operating system and one or more sets of specific instructions of the operating system to perform operations comprising: by execution of the main program component of the operating system, receiving from an external program a request comprising one or more commands and settings data for a proposed modification of configuration settings of a target software component of the operating system intended to run on the computer entity, wherein the configuration settings are stored in a repository, and a plurality of external programs share configuration settings in the repository; by execution of the main program component of the operating system, determining from the request one or more sets of specific instructions of the operating system designated for responding to the one or more commands in the request; by execution of the one or more determined sets of specific instructions, validating the proposed modification of the configuration settings of the software component required by the external program based on at least one criterion and, responsive to a successful validation of the proposed modification of the configuration settings of the software component, producing a response comprising an implementation of the proposed modification of the configuration settings of the software component; by execution of the main program component of the operating system, receiving the response and updating the configuration settings of the target software component in the repository based on the implementation of the proposed modification; and by execution of the main program component, notifying the plurality of external programs of changes in the shared configuration settings in the repository.