1. A public computing system, comprising: a plurality of computers to be used by patrons of a public computing infrastructure; one or more servers coupled to the plurality of computers via a network connection; wherein each of the plurality of computers includes a virtual machine monitor, the virtual machine monitor having a plurality of base virtual machine images, each of the base virtual machine images being customized for a particular hardware and software configuration representing a specific computing environment, the virtual machine monitor to launch one of the plurality of virtual machine images and to arbitrate access to system resources via the launched virtual machine image.