Abstract: An installation plan object is built for installing an application in a network. The empty installation plan object is first created from a template of a prototypical installation plan object. Next, from a workspace container object containing potential child objects of the installation plan object, objects are selected for inclusion in the installation plan object. The selected objects are transformed into child objects of the installation plan object. The objects which are selected to populate an install plan object include an application object and a group object which respectively represent an application to be installed over the network and a group of workstations upon which the application is to be installed. After transformation, these objects are converted into an application-in-plan object and a group-in-plan object respectively.

Abstract: Committing an installation plan object for installing applications in a network. The installation plan object includes an application-in-plan object which represents an application program and a group-in-plan object which represents a group of workstations on which the application program is to be installed. As part of the commit process, the installation plan object is prevalidated by examining its child objects and adding additional child objects to the installation plan object if required, validated by examining data in the installation plan object and its child objects for errors in the data and transformed into data structures usable for a network installation engine which installs applications across a network. The installation plan further includes a response file object if the application's installation requires a response file and a customization file object which contains data to customize the response file object data for particular workstations.

Abstract: An installation plan object including application objects representing applications to be installed during an installation process and workstation objects representing the workstation on which the applications are to be installed is validated prior to executing the installation plan. According to the invention, multiple sets of communication modules, that is redirector and transport modules are capable of installing the applications on the workstations over a computer network. Therefore, the availability and compatibility of the redirectors and transports at the workstations must be assured. After the installation plan object is built by the user of application objects and workstation objects, the attributes of the application objects are examined for the communication modules which may be used for installation of the applications on the workstations. Next, the validation process determines whether the communication modules are available during the installation process at the workstations.