Patent ID: 7681181

Claim:
A method for providing custom product support for a software program based on states of program execution instability, the method comprising: receiving a remote control file, the remote control file comprising at least one threshold level of program execution instability and at least one expiration date associated with the at least one threshold level of program execution instability; monitoring, by a computing system comprising a processor coupled to a memory storage, execution of the software program over a period of time to determine execution stability of the software program by: generating a session entry in a log each time the software program is executed, the session entry comprising data identifying the software program and a length of time the software program was executed, periodically analyzing the log to generate at least one statistic that describes the execution stability of the software program according to the session entry, and indicating whether the execution of the software program was terminated one of: normally and abnormally, wherein an abnormal termination comprises at least one of: a program crash, a program hang, and an abnormal program termination; determining whether the at least one expiration date associated with the at least one threshold level of program execution instability has not passed; in response to determining whether the at least one expiration date associated with the at least one threshold level of program execution instability has not passed, categorizing, by the computing system, the execution stability of the software program based on the at least one threshold level of program execution instability by comparing the at least one statistic to a corresponding threshold to categorize the execution stability of the software program into one of a plurality of states of program execution instability; identifying, by the computing system, a previously established diagnostic state of the software program; and providing the custom product support for the software program based upon the categorization and the previously established diagnostic state of the software program.