Patent ID: 7478283

Claim:
A method comprising: installing in a computer a new software, wherein the new software is isolated from old software in the computer; designating the new software as being in a provisional status, wherein the new software is deemed to be under the provisional status for a pre-determined period of time after being installed; monitoring the computer while the new software is running, under the provisional status, in an isolated location; upon detecting a first error condition in the computer while the new software is running in the isolated location, reporting the first error condition; upon detecting no error condition in the computer while the new software is running in the isolated location, removing the provisional status from the new software; executing the new software with other existing software in the computer; upon detecting multiple error conditions when the new software executes with the other existing software in the computer, determining an incompatibility between the new software and the other existing software by evaluating the multiple error conditions that occur when the new software is run in the computer, wherein evaluating the multiple error conditions includes identifying another software that is running with the new software in all of the multiple error conditions, and wherein evaluating the multiple error conditions includes identifying a provisional software that is running with the new software when one or more of the multiple error conditions occurs, and wherein evaluating the multiple error conditions includes identifying a highly active software that is running with the new software when one of the error conditions occurred; eliminating an inactive software as a potential cause of one or more of the multiple error conditions; and in response to detecting the multiple error conditions, removing the new software from the computer, wherein the monitoring, reporting, removing, executing, determining, eliminating and removing steps are only performed while the new software is under the provisional status.