A smart card enabled mobile personal computing environment system stores a user's personalized, fully functional, computing environment in a smart card. A user information database is provided that is resident on a server and contains the user records of a plurality of users containing personal computing environment data with the amount of data in the user record generally larger than the storage capacity of a smart card. The user to specifies the information required to configure the client to the user's preferred personal computing environment. If the correct personal computing environment data is not resident in the smart card, the client queries the server for the information needed and updates the smart card with the new data. The user also manages his personal computing environment data stored on the smart card and the user information database. The server gives the client access to the user's records through a secure Web site. The user accesses his data, adds, modifies, and/or deletes information and transfers data to his smart card via the secure Web site. If the client has a slow or temporary connection with the server, the client is able to accommodate the user's data management needs by downloading the user's records stored on the server's user information database. The user can then manage his data without a connection to the server. Any changes to the user's records are later sent to the server to update the user information database.