Patent ID: 8001528

Claim:
A computer system comprising: a computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon at least a first software entity; and an operating system that creates a first context for managing a plurality of software entities that includes the first software entity and a second software entity, the first context configured for storing state settings, the state settings comprising information pertaining to a dependency of the first software entity on the second software entity; the first context comprising: a first installation service that manages installation of a first software item; a first configuration service that manages configuration settings associated with the first software item; and a first activation service that creates an execution environment for the first software item based on the configuration settings associated with the first software item; the operating system creates a second context based on the first context, the second context comprising: a second installation service that manages installation of the second software item; a second configuration service that manages configuration settings associated with the second software item; and a second activation service that creates an execution environment for the second software item based on the configuration settings associated with the second software item, the operating system being used to link the first context and the second context together such that the first context is a parent of the second context.