Surjections of unit groups and semi-inverses

Given a surjective ring homomorphism, we study when the induced group homomorphism on unit groups is surjective. To this end, we introduce notions of generalized inverses and units, as well as a class of rings such that the set of closed points in the spectrum is a closed set. It is shown that any surjection out of such a ring induces a surjection on unit groups.