The present invention provides a method and an apparatus that utilize a portable apparatus to operate a host computer in a network environment. The portable apparatus including an operating system and a list of software applications are installed in a removable data storage medium. The basic input/output system (BIOS) of the host computer will directly or indirectly identify the portable apparatus as its boot drive. The host computer immersed in a network environment will further load the operating system in the portable apparatus into its random access semiconductor memory (RAM). In one embodiment of the invention, a hardware profile which contains host and peripheral device-related information is either stored or operatively accessible by the host computer. The operating system is capable of incorporating information from the hardware profile during an OS-loading procedure.