Patent ID: 8352933

Claim:
A method for replacing a computer program with a replacement version of the computer program concurrently with the execution of the computer program by a first instance of an operating system in a computer system, the method comprising: providing a persistent memory area in said computer system to store selected data from said first instance of the operating system; providing a snapshot image of a second instance of the operating system, wherein in said second instance of the operating system, the replacement version of the computer program is executed instead of said computer program; loading said snapshot image of said second instance of the operating system into a main memory in said computer system; suspending the execution of said first instance of the operating system; replacing data in said first instance of the operating system with data from said snapshot image of said second instance of the operating system while preserving the selected data in said persistent memory area; resuming the execution of said first instance of the operating system; and restoring the selected data from said persistent memory area in said first instance of the operating system.