Patent ID: 7346634

Claim:
In a computer system that supports one or more software applications each having one or more configuration settings which determine how a software application operates on data processed by the software application, and wherein the configuration settings of a software application are subject to change over time to change how the data is operated upon by the software application, a method of reverting a current configuration setting for a software application to a previous configuration setting so that the software application will be configured to operate on data in the same manner as the software application did with the previous configuration settings that were used by the application software, the method comprising acts of at the computer system: based upon a request from a user or a selection from the software application, generating changes to the software application's configuration settings; updating a configuration store by storing therein the changed application configuration settings of the software application to maintain a history of one or more configuration setting changes for the software application; generating a package that uniquely identifies the contents of the package and the changes to the software application's configuration settings so that the package will then be later recalled and used when reverting the configuration settings of the software application back to a state that existed prior to the changes in the configuration settings; storing the package in a software application configuration log; displaying a graphical user interface, the graphical user interface including filtering functionality for filtering application configuration information based on a per application basis including displaying the name of one or more applications such that configuration information for a specific application can be selected; in response to a user selection of an application from the graphical user interface, retrieving the stored package when desirable to revert the configuration settings of the software application back to a state that existed prior to the changes in the configuration settings so that the software application will be capable of operating on data in the same manner as the software application did with the previous configuration settings that were used by the application software; and using the contents of the package and the changes to the configuration settings of the software application uniquely identified by the package to revert the configuration settings back to the configuration settings that existed prior to the changes identified by the package so the software application will thereafter be configured to operate on data in the same manner as the software application did prior to such changes.