Request based automation of software installation, customization and activation

摘要

The invention relates to a system and method for request based installation, customization and activation of software products on a computer system by means of a setup infrastructure (20) for coordinating the process phases. A plurality of exploiter plug-ins (24) are provided, each assigned to a program product already installed in the computer system or a program product to be installed. The exploiter plug-ins are used by the setup infrastructure for indicating a program package description and program product description and for providing customization dialogs and support to instantiate and activate the program to be installed. Bind supporter plug-ins (23) are assigned to selected ones of the program products and used for supporting the binding procedure by providing bind services to the setup infrastructure. The supporter plug-ins are used by the exploiter plug-ins to establish binding to at least some of the program packages or products stored, where the binding parameters needed by the exploiter plug-ins are indicated to the supporter plug-ins by bind requests. Package adapter plug-ins are provided to provide data format information for enabling the setup infrastructure to identify a program product to be installed and to generate product definition data. A management directory (27) is used for storing data associated with a particular program product and references to program products in a program library of the computer system.