Method and apparatus for gryphing a data storage medium

A method comprising:

• mass-customizing a plurality of individual devices by:
• loading all of the plurality of individual devices with a common set of installed soft assets that include a plurality of installed programs and an operating system, each one of the plurality of individual devices also having directory data having entries indicative of locations of the soft assets and registry data having entries used by the operating system to properly execute each of the plurality of installed programs, and
• after loading all of the plurality of devices with the common set of soft assets, then transforming differing subsets of the installed soft assets from an installed state into an erased state on each one of the plurality of individual devices.

A computer-readable medium having a plurality of soft assets in an installed state, wherein the soft assets include a plurality of installed programs and an operating system, the computer-readable medium also having directory data having entries indicative of locations of the assets and registry data having entries used by the operating system to properly execute each of the plurality of installed programs and a computer program stored thereon for execution on a computer, to cause the computer to execute a method comprising transforming the state of a subset of the soft assets to an uninstalled state including removing entries from the registry data otherwise usable by the operating system to properly execute each of a subset of the plurality of installed programs.

A new article of manufacture comprising an information-processing appliance having a selected set of installed soft assets available in a substantially ready-to-use state and residual indicia of non-selected assets in an erased state, wherein the information-processing appliance includes an operating system, and also having directory data having entries indicative of locations of the installed assets and registry data having entries that are used by the operating system to properly execute each of the plurality of installed assets and that include registry metadata that enables functionality of the selected set of the installed soft assets with the operating system;

• wherein the operating software method implementing the information-processing appliance further comprises reporting, to a central facility, data that indicate a status of the transforming the state of the subset of the soft assets to an uninstalled state.