A device virtualization system is described herein that separates common computer processing tasks of an embedded device from the application-specific peripherals of the embedded device to allow at least some functions of the device to be offloaded to servers or other computing devices. The device virtualization system greatly simplifies management, configuration, and control of virtual embedded devices. Because much of the software of the device runs on the virtualization server, information technology (IT) personnel can be assigned to manage the virtualization server and to apply any updates and diagnose any problems that occur. Moreover, a single server or group of servers can be used to provide virtualization services for a wide variety of virtualized embedded devices for a wide variety of users. Thus, the system enhances the usefulness of embedded devices and allows a longer lifetime and wider variety of uses than embedded devices today.