Abstract: Broad-based, systematic, individualized, interactive customer software support is provided through a two-way, voluntary automated exchange of information between a software agent installed on a customer's machine and a server machine via a wide area computer network, e.g., the Internet. Communication between the agent and the server is optimized to be unobtrusive or transparent, e.g. using spare bandwidth of intermittent Internet connections. The agent is software non-specific and may be instructed to operate with respect to any arbitrary software program, and may further be instructed at various different times to operate with respect to various different software programs, including multiple different software programs on a single machine.

Abstract: The present invention, generally speaking, provides for broad-based, systematic, individualized, interactive customer software support through a two-way, voluntary automated exchange of information between a software agent installed on a customer's machine and a server machine via a wide area computer network, e.g., the Internet. Communication between the agent and the server is optimized to be unobtrusive or transparent, using spare bandwidth of intermittent Internet connections, for example. The agent is software non-specific and may be instructed to operate with respect to any arbitrary software program, and may further be instructed at various different times to operate with respect to various different software programs, including multiple different software programs on a single machine.