A system and method are provided for updating persistent data in a wireless communications device. The wireless communications device receives patch manager run time instructions from an airlink interface. A run-time engine is launched. The run-time engine receives the patch manager run time instructions with dynamic instruction sets and new code sections, including updated persistent data. The run-time engine processes the dynamic instruction sets. In response to processing the dynamic instruction sets, the run-time engine selectively updates persistent data in the system software. The updated persistent data may, for example, be selected from the following: radio frequency (RF) calibration data, nonvolatile system and user configuration data, resource data, nonvolatile system and user application data, and arbitrary data.