Patent ID: 8645939

Claim:
A software management system for a user, comprising: a computer, including a computer readable medium and one or more micro-processors; an install package which includes a plurality of software products forming a combined software product, wherein the combined software product is associated with an alias and wherein the plurality of software products are organized according to a multi-layer hierarchical product tree including: a first layer of software components that form the software products; a second layer of feature sets that are associated with the software components; and a third layer of software bundles that support the feature sets; an installer which uses the alias to install or patch the combined software product on a destination system, including: determining, based on the alias and the multi-layer hierarchical product tree, that a combined installation or patching of the plurality of software products is to be performed, including the software components that form those software products, and instructing a patch management system which automatically loads patches to the plurality of software products as appropriate; and an install registry which indicates those software products that are installed on the destination system, and dependencies of those software products as installed on the destination system.