Patent ID: 7146610

Claim:
In a system providing a COM (Component Object Model) for use by a plurality of client applications, a method of providing an upgraded version of said COM for use by at least one of said plurality of client applications, without taking other client applications of said plurality that will not use the upgrade out of service, said method comprising the steps of: providing a first version of said COM with a first file name and a plurality of client applications that use said first version of said COM; storing an upgraded version of said COM with a second file name in a directory; registering said upgraded COM in a system registry file; shutting down only said at least one client application of said plurality that will use said upgraded version of said COM while the other client applications of said plurality that will not use said upgraded version of said COM are running and then; reconfiguring said at least one shut down client application to operate with said upgraded COM with said second file name; running said reconfigured client application; and linking said running reconfigured client application to said COM having said second file name.