A method for automatically generating a software stack in an information handling system. The information handling system includes a software process partition. The method includes generating a manifest identifying software stack contents, creating a target partition within the information handling system, installing the specified software stack components into the target partition, configuring the target partition as active and bootable and the software process partition as hidden, booting into the target partition, setting up and configuring the software components within the target partition, and configuring the software process partition as active and bootable and the target partition as inactive. The generated software stack optionally may be captured for later use.