An exemplary method controls the operation of a diskless client computer using a disk based operating system. The client computer is booted by fetching operating system modules through a network connection from a remote host computer. A ramdisk stores key operating system modules. The key operating system modules are locked in ramdisk to prevent swapping of the modules by the operating system. The loading of programs requiring real-time operation stored at the host computer are managed so that the programs are loaded as separate modules spaced-apart in time where the client computer is released between the loading of the separate modules to process other tasks.