Patent ID: 8087014

Claim:
A method for software configuration management for a computing device having an authentication status, the method comprising: receiving a request to load available software into an application storage area of the computing device; determining the authentication status of the computing device, wherein the computing device's authentication status is authenticated if at least one piece of the computing device's resident software has been authenticated, and the computing device's authentication status is not authenticated if none of the computing device's resident software has been authenticated; determining an authentication status of the available software, wherein the available software's authentication status is authenticated if the available software has been authenticated by the computing device, and the available software's authentication status is not authenticated if the available software has not been authenticated by the computing device; and changing the computing device's authentication status to authenticated and loading the available software into the application storage area if the computing device's authentication status is determined to be not authenticated and the available software's authentication status is determined to be authenticated.