INFORMATION PROCESSING APPARATUS, AND SYSTEM HAVING PREVIEW CONTROL, AND METHOD THEREOF, AND STORAGE MEDIUM STORING PROGRAM FOR IMPLEMENTING THE METHOD

A system and method update client computers of various end users with software updates for software products installed on the client computers. The system includes a service provider computer system, a number of client computers and software vendor computer systems communicating on a common network. The service provider computer system stores in an update database information about the software updates of diverse software vendors, identifying the software products for which software updates are available, information for identifying in the client computers the software products stored thereon, and information for determining for such products, which have software updates available. Users of the client computers connect to the service provider computer and obtain a current version of portions of the database. The client computer determines that software products stored thereon, and using this information, determines from the database, which products have updates available, based on product name and release information for the installed products. The user selects updates for installation. The selected updates are downloaded from the software vendor computer systems and installed on the client computer.