Patent ID: 8201161

Claim:
A machine-implemented method comprising: identifying, by a first guest operating system running on a computer system, a device software update corresponding to a device attached to the computer system, wherein a virtualized environment exists on the computer system to support a plurality of operating systems, including the first guest operating system and a privileged operating system, using a hypervisor; notifying, via the hypervisor, the privileged operating system that is also running on the computer system of the identified device software update; in response to the notifying, the privileged operating system performs the following: denying one or more guest operating systems, which includes the first guest operating system, access to the device; continuing execution of the one or more guest operating systems for a duration that the one or more guest operating systems are executing and denied access to the device; validating a connection with the first operating system; in response to successfully validating the connection, transferring control to the first guest operating system, whereupon the first guest operating system responds by storing a front end driver and transferring control back to the privileged operating system along with a driver update handle; in response to receiving the driver update handle, the privileged operating system performs the following: validating the driver software update; and disabling the device; updating device software used to operate the device using the identified device software update while the one or more guest operating systems are denied access to the device, wherein, in response to the updating, an updated back-end driver corresponds to the stored front-end driver; and resuming access between the one or more guest operating systems and the device in response to the updating.