Abstract: Embodiments provide developers with easy to use file atomicity mechanisms and undo/redo functionality that are not tied to any particular document format by using modern file systems. More specifically, a transaction file manager is configured to automatically utilize a directory name change operation to ensure the atomicity of file modifications (i.e., a change to one file is either consistently applied across all files within the directory, or not at all) without regard to any particular file format. Further, to support versioning of changes to multiple files, embodiments also keep the order of sets of changes by using a sortable directory naming mechanism within the transaction file manager. Most modern file system will allow for these two things, thus providing a system that atomically applies changes across arbitrary sets of files using any file format, while also providing multilevel undo/redo functionality.

Abstract: Installing software using the configuration manager so that the rollback and security features of the configuration manager may be used during the installation process. A mobile computing device accesses files that are to be installed on the mobile computing device, and well as computer-executable instructions that define how the files are to be installed on the mobile computing device. The configuration manager then causes the computer-executable instructions to be executed (e.g., using configuration service providers), and causes a mirroring rollback document to be constructed. If the installation fails, the installation process is reversed by executing the rollback document. The configuration manager may also be used to implement security when executing the installation instructions by checking to determine whether or not execution of each installation instruction is authorized.