Patent ID: 7831981

Claim:
A method, comprising: accessing attribute information associating each of a plurality of keys with a respective plurality of device attributes, wherein each of the plurality of keys identifies a respective device; configuring an interface to a device driver for communication with a device dependent on which device attributes the attribute information associates with one of the plurality of keys, wherein the one of the plurality of keys identifies the device, wherein the device attributes which the attribute information associates with the one of the plurality of keys comprise an upgrade attribute, wherein the upgrade attribute indicates whether the device has an optional functionality, and wherein the upgrade attribute indicates a method for determining whether or not the optional functionality is currently implemented by the device; wherein said configuring configures the interface to include one or more of a plurality of interface features, wherein each of the plurality of interface features supports a respective device attribute; and updating the attribute information to include a new key identifying a new device and to associate one or more device attributes from the plurality of device attributes with the new key, wherein the plurality of interface features supporting the respective device attributes of the plurality of devices identified by the plurality of keys is not updated by said updating.