Patent ID: 7457831

Claim:
A method for maintaining components of multiple simultaneously active networked peripheral device drivers, on a networked machine, wherein differing components of the simultaneously active networked peripheral device drivers potentially comprise differing peripheral device driver files bearing a same name, the method comprising: requesting driver identification information for a peripheral device queue for a networked peripheral device, wherein the driver identification information is maintained by a server; receiving, in response to the requesting, a driver identification specifying a particular driver package, a package version, and a particular version of a networked peripheral device driver, wherein the version comprises an encoded, multi-segmented value; comparing the driver identification to a set of active driver packages' package versions, and active driver versions currently maintained by the networked machine; determining that the set of device drivers does not comprise the driver package, package version, and driver version corresponding to the driver identification; issuing a query comprising the driver package identification to a repository of device driver components; obtaining a copy of a complete set of device driver files corresponding to the particular package, particular package version, and particular version of the networked peripheral device driver from the repository of device driver components; providing an active driver component storage that holds containers for active networked peripheral device driver components; establishing a container for storing the set of driver files constituting a package, a package version, and a version of a networked peripheral device driver component, wherein the container is associated with the active device driver components of the networked machine; assigning a unique identifier name to the container, wherein the unique identifier name comprises a package identification and a version identification of the device driver component; and inserting the set of driver files within the container.