Granted Patent B2

US 12,724,617 · App. 18/340,221 · Granted Sep 1, 2026

Inventors: Rafael Rodrigues Machado (Sorocaba, BR); Nathan Peterson (Oxford, NC); Scott Wentao Li (Cary, NC); Igor Stolbikov (Apex, NC)

Assignee: Lenovo (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.

G06F9/4403G06F9/44505

Abstract

Claims (41)

1 . A computer implemented method comprising:

receiving changes to multiple BIOS (basic input/output system) settings on a computer;

maintaining a record of the multiple BIOS settings prior to the change wherein the record comprises a linked list storing individual setting values;

rebooting the computer to effect the changes to the BIOS settings;

detecting that an operating system did not successfully load after the reboot by accessing a UEFI variable shared between the operating system and the BIOS to confirm that the operating system did not set or modify the UEFI variable;

generating a user interface that displays each of the multiple BIOS settings that were changed, wherein the user interface provides individual selection controls for each of the multiple BIOS settings, enabling a user to select a subset of the multiple BIOS settings to revert to their prior values while maintaining remaining BIOS settings at their changed values; and

rebooting the computer in response to selection to revert to the subset of the multiple BIOS settings to their prior values while maintaining the remaining BIOS settings at their changed values.

2 . The method of claim 1 wherein the linked list is stored in a partition of non-volatile memory managed by the BIOS.

3 . The method of claim 1 wherein BIOS includes multiple modules, each module corresponding to a hardware component of the computer, and wherein the linked list comprises a set of settings for each hardware component.

4 . The method of claim 3 wherein the user interface lists each module and provides an ability to select settings to revert from one or more of the modules.

5 . The method of claim 3 , wherein:

each module of the BIOS separately monitors for successful loading of the operating system by monitoring a respective variable associated with that module,

detecting that the operating system did not successfully load comprises determining which modules detected the failure based on their respective variables, and

generating the user interface comprises displaying a visual indication distinguishing settings associated with modules that detected the failure from settings associated with modules that did not detect the failure.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein maintaining the record comprises:

identifying differences between the multiple BIOS settings prior to the changes and the multiple BIOS settings after the changes;

storing only the identified differences as delta values in the linked list rather than storing complete BIOS configuration data; and

wherein rebooting the computer in response to selection comprises applying the delta values to revert the subset of the multiple BIOS settings while maintaining remaining BIOS settings by not applying delta values for the remaining BIOS settings.

7 . A machine-readable storage device having instructions for execution by a processor of a machine to cause the processor to perform operations to perform a method, the operations comprising:

receiving changes to multiple BIOS (basic input/output system) settings on a computer;

maintaining a record of the multiple BIOS settings prior to the changes wherein the record comprises a linked list storing individual setting values;

rebooting the computer to effect the changes to the BIOS settings;

detecting that an operating system did not successfully load after the reboot by accessing a UEFI variable shared between the operating system and the BIOS to confirm that the operating system did not set or modify the UEFI variable;

generating a user interface that displays each of the multiple BIOS settings that were changed, wherein the user interface provides individual selection controls for each of the multiple BIOS settings, enabling a user to select a subset of the multiple BIOS settings to revert to their prior values while maintaining remaining BIOS settings at their changed values; and

rebooting the computer in response to selection to revert to the subset of the multiple BIOS settings to their prior values while maintaining the remaining BIOS settings at their changed values.

8 . The device of claim 7 wherein the linked list is stored in a partition of non-volatile memory managed by the BIOS.

9 . The device of claim 7 wherein BIOS includes multiple modules, each module corresponding to a hardware component of the computer, and wherein the linked list comprises a set of settings for each hardware component.

10 . The device of claim 9 wherein the user interface lists each module and provides an ability to select settings to revert from one or more of the modules.

11 . A device comprising:

a processor; and

a non-volatile storage device operably connectable to the processor, the non-volatile storage device storing BIOS code and multiple BIOS settings, wherein the processor executes the BIOS code to perform operations comprising:

receiving changes to multiple BIOS (basic input/output system) settings on a computer;

maintaining a record of the multiple BIOS settings prior to the changes wherein the record comprises a linked list storing individual setting values;

rebooting the computer to effect the changes to the BIOS settings;

detecting that an operating system did not successfully load after the reboot by accessing a UEFI variable shared between the operating system and the BIOS to confirm that the operating system did not set or modify the UEFI variable;

generating a user interface that displays each of the multiple BIOS settings that were changed, wherein the user interface provides individual selection controls for each of the multiple BIOS settings, enabling a user to select a subset of the multiple BIOS settings to revert to their prior values while maintaining remaining BIOS settings at their changed values; and

rebooting the computer in response to selection to revert to the subset of the multiple BIOS settings to their prior values while maintaining the remaining BIOS settings at their changed values.

12 . The device of claim 11 wherein BIOS includes multiple modules, each module corresponding to a hardware component of the computer, and wherein the linked list comprises a set of settings for each hardware component.

13 . The device of claim 12 wherein the user interface lists each module and provides an ability to select settings to revert from one or more of the modules or to select individual settings to revert.

14 . The device of claim 11 , wherein the non-volatile storage device comprises a first local storage device and a second remote storage device and wherein maintaining the record comprises storing the linked list at the first local storage device and the second remote storage device.

15 . The device of claim 11 , wherein the BIOS code comprises multiple modules, each module corresponding to a hardware component of the computing system, wherein the linked list comprises a set of settings for each module, and wherein the user interface displays each module with its associated settings organized by module.

Assignments (2)

Continuity (1)

References Cited (15)