Patent ID: 7987459

Claim:
A software architecture for a distributed computing system, the architecture for searching for, downloading, and installing software updates, the architecture being encoded upon one or more computer-readable media, and the architecture comprising: a program configured to access software updates existing in the distributed computing system, the program comprising: an UpdateSearcher object receiving a set of search criteria from a requestor; the UpdateSearcher object building a SearchResult object which comprises updates matching the search criteria; the UpdateSearcher object returning the SearchResult object to the requestor, wherein the SearchResult object provides an object of a CategoryCollection class and an object of an UpdateExceptionCollection class, the CategoryCollection object providing access to a plurality of objects of a Category class and the UpdateExceptionCollection object providing a context of an exception when an update error occurs; and an application programming interface (API) to present functions used by an application to access the software updates, the API comprising: an Update Session namespace adapted to provide a session to access the software updates, an Automatic Updates namespace adapted to automatically begin an a software update process, an Update Service namespace adapted to provide information about at least one service that provides the software updates, an Update Searcher namespace adapted to search for the software updates, an Update Downloader namespace adapted to download the software updates to the requestor, and an Update Installer namespace adapted to install the software updates.