A conventional electronic equipment manufacturer may impose a process of testing a new computer (or a new hardware processing module) prior to shipping the new computer to a customer. In one such conventional process, a human test administrator directs the new computer to boot an operating system from an operating system server over a network using the Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) protocol which utilizes the Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP). The human test administrator then puts the new computer through a series of tests while the new computer runs that operating system. Details of the PXE protocol are provided in a document entitled “Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) Specification”, Version 2.1, dated Sep. 20, 1999 offered by Intel Corporation of Santa Clara, Calif., the content and teachings of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
In another conventional process, a human test administrator carries a universal serial bus (USB) memory stick (i.e., a portable flash memory drive) containing the operating system, and plugs the USB memory stick into a USB port of the new computer. The human test administrator then directs the new computer to boot the operating system from the USB memory stick, and then puts the new computer through the series of tests while the new computer runs the operating system.