Patent ID: 7757030

Claim:
A method for managing hardware on a computer system, the method comprising: obtaining a hardware topology of the computer system, the hardware topology including information on active hardware components of computer system; translating the hardware topology of the computer system into namespace information, wherein the namespace information describes the active hardware components; storing the namespace information to memory; configuring boot information in the namespace information to hide at least one hardware component from the active hardware components on a next boot and to cause remaining hardware components of the active hardware components to remain active on the next boot, the at least one hardware component being selected from a group including a processor; rebooting the computer system with the at least one hardware component being hidden and the remaining hardware components remaining active according to the configured boot switch information; and after the reboot, dynamically loading the namespace information from the memory, wherein the namespace information includes namespace information corresponding to the at least one hardware component being hidden, and evaluating the namespace information corresponding to the at least one hardware component being hidden to cause the operating system to recognize the at least one hardware component.