Patent ID: 6961941

Claim:
In a computer system that includes: at least one hardware processor that has a hardware instruction pointer; and a first operating system (COS) initially installed to run on the hardware processor at a most-privileged, system level, the system level being defined as an operational state with permission to directly access predetermined physical resources of the computer; a method comprising: initializing the computer with the COS; loading a load call module within the COS; upon initialization of the computer, calling a loading module from the load call module, whereupon the loading module loads a kernel, which forms a second operating system; via the COS starting execution of the kernel, the kernel thereupon substantially displacing the COS from the system level and itself running at the system level; the step of loading the kernel including: via the loading module, setting the hardware instruction pointer and forwarding of interrupts and faults generated by the processor and by predetermined ones of the system resources to point into a memory address space allocated to and controlled by the kernel, the kernel thereby handling requests for system resources.