Patent ID: 8407147

Claim:
A method of conducting a software update of a gaming machine, comprising: starting a boot process of the gaming machine, wherein a central processing unit (CPU) initiates reading of a basic input/output system (BIOS) loader stored in a BIOS; monitoring reading of the BIOS loader via a monitoring device, wherein the monitoring device contains a duplicate copy of the BIOS loader; reading, by the CPU, the BIOS loader and validating, by the CPU, that the BIOS loader read by the CPU matches the duplicate copy of the BIOS loader contained within the monitoring device; determining, by the BIOS loader, during the boot process that a memory device is in data communication with the gaming machine; determining, by the BIOS loader, that the memory device in data communication with the gaming machine contains at least one authentic second software component more recent than a corresponding first software component currently stored in gaming machine memory; and updating by the BIOS loader, gaming machine memory with each of the at least one authentic second software component that is more recent than the corresponding first software component.