Mechanism for determining applicability of software packages for installation

Abstract

Mechanism for determining applicability of a software package for installation is described herein. In one embodiment, a process is provided to retrieve authentication information of a component from an installation descriptor file, where the descriptor file describes installation information of the software package. The software package may include one or more components and each component having zero or more sub-components. For at least one sub-component of at least one existing component that has already been installed, an image of the sub-component is authenticated using an authentication key extracted from the authentication information to determine whether the component can be installed based on the existing component. Other methods and apparatuses are also described.

Description

[0001]This application is a continuation of co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 918,614, filed on Aug. 13, 2004.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates generally to computer systems. More particularly, this invention relates to mechanism for determining applicability of software packages for installation.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]Most popular software products nowadays constantly go through revisions to fix “bugs” or add new features and functionality. To that end, each revision of a software product or component may require the addition of new files, the replacement of existing files with newer versions of files, and / or removal of a file. Once a vendor has isolated a software product problem and created a solution for the problem, they would want to put that fix into an update and make the update widely available to the customers. Software vendors have a business incentive to distribute software updates to customers as quickly and trouble-free as...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

"The patent describes a way to check if software packages can be installed on a computer. It involves retrieving information from a file that describes the software package and using it to verify if the components of the package can be installed based on the existing version of those components. This helps to ensure that software packages are only installed on compatible computers."

Problems solved by technology

Otherwise, the patch may be incorrectly applied and the file may be damaged.

If a file to be patched is in an unexpected state, the patch cannot be applied.

In addition, if the client machine has a sub-component that has a newer version than the one about to be upgraded, a conventional installation may abort the whole installation, even though there might be other sub-components that have older versions.

Images