Abstract: A system to securely install software upgrades and patches includes determining which software upgrades and patches should be applied, collecting the software upgrades and patches from vendors by downloading them from the vendor's ftp sites, and installing the software upgrades and patches. Embodiments of the system include interpreting how much memory and disk space is needed to install the software upgrades; interpreting the operating system type, version and architecture the software upgrades apply to; interpreting dependencies on other layered products; interpreting dependencies on other upgrades or patches, interpreting which files and directories will be affected by the installation of the software upgrades; backing out software upgrades and patches.