Patent ID: 7120675

Claim:
A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions comprising: assigning a value to a unique identifier that is used to identify a version of software associated with an executable, wherein: the value is associated with a feature of update information that is used to update the corresponding version of the software, and the feature comprises at least one of: the location of the update information, a method for locating the update information, a time stamp associated with the update information, the size of the update information, a signature associated with the update information, and the age of the update information; extracting metadata from the executable, wherein the metadata includes the unique identifier; generating a request to obtain location information of the update information using the unique identifier, wherein the request is generated by packaging the extracted metadata; querying a first server for the location information using the request, wherein: the location information includes a redirect to a location of a second server that comprises the update information, the redirect includes the unique identifier, and the location information identifies the second server type; linking the first server to the second server; querying the second server for the update information using the redirect, wherein the redirect is associated with a protocol supported by the second server type identified in the location information; receiving the update information from the second server; and updating the version of the software identified by the unique identifier based on the update information.