Patent ID: 8694989

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving an executable application installation program configured to run on a first operating system, wherein an electronic host system receiving the installation program is configured to run a second operating system; detecting beginning execution of the installation program; providing a virtual installation environment for the installation program in response to detecting beginning execution of the installation program, wherein the installation program collects changes to be made to one or more components of the electronic host system during installation of the executable application, and the collected changes to be made include changes to a filesystem, changes to path names, and changes to a database of the second operating system; storing the collected changes to be made to the one or more components and the application to be installed on the electronic host system in files without making the collected changes to the electronic host system; in response to a first access of the application to be installed, applying the collected changes to the one or more components of the electronic host system, wherein applying the collected changes comprises: providing a mapping between a first path structure of the first operating system and a second path structure of the second operating system, wherein the mapping maps locations of files in the first operating system to locations of files in the second operating system, and making the collected changes to the filesystem, path names, and database of the second operating system; and executing the application on the electronic host system after the collected changes are applied.