Patent ID: 7231549

Claim:
A method for providing and executing a diagnostics module in direct response to a user request, the method comprising: receiving the request from the user to execute the diagnostics module; in response to the user request, retrieving from a diagnostics server computer a control object operative to manage the installation and execution of the diagnostics module; and executing the control object, wherein execution of the control object comprises: retrieving from the diagnostics server computer a configuration file containing data identifying one or more network addresses at the diagnostics server computer for communicating with the diagnostics server computer and a data file containing data describing how the diagnostics module should be installed on a client computer; requesting, by way of a network address specified by the configuration file, permission to retrieve the diagnostics module from the diagnostics server computer; in response to receiving permission to retrieve the diagnostics module, retrieving the diagnostics module from the diagnostics server computer at a network address specified by the configuration file; installing the diagnostics module on the client computer according to data provided in the data file; requesting, by way of a network address specified by the configuration file, permission to begin the execution of the diagnostics module; and executing the diagnostics module in response to receiving permission.