Patent ID: 7434211

Claim:
In a computing system that includes an operating system and a plurality of applications that share a common, system-wide set of settings, such that when the settings are established, the settings apply equally to each of the operating system and the plurality of applications, a method for enabling a particular application to change one or more settings while preserving an original state of the system-wide, shared settings and ensuring that changes are reverted to the original state when the particular application exits, comprising: creating a bubble to maintain original state data of at least one system setting, the at least one system setting being shared between multiple applications such that the at least one system setting applies to each of the multiple applications using a corresponding resource affected by the at least one system setting; in conjunction with execution of program code of an application program of the multiple applications, receiving a request to change the original state data of the at least one system setting; preserving the original state data of the at least one system setting via code of the bubble, wherein preserving the at least one system setting includes storing a value corresponding to the original state data; changing the at least one system setting such that the original state data is changed to amended state data; and automatically, and upon exit of the application program that requested change of the original state data, restoring, via code of the bubble, the state data of the at least one system setting from the amended state data back to the original state data as it existed prior to execution of the program code of the application program, and such that reversion from amended state data back to original state data of the at least one setting is performed independent of, and without involving, the application program.