1. A method, comprising: reading, upon a completion of at least one power-on self-test operation, stored status information indicating whether a network connectivity was available a last time an operating system of a computer system was operational; loading a stand-alone network driver that does not involve the operating system, when the stored status information indicates that the network connectivity was not available; when the stored status information indicates that the network connectivity was not available, using the stand-alone network driver to obtain a software patch from a device on a network, wherein the software patch is for software of the computer system; and executing and applying the software patch.