1. A method of selecting patches having attributes and successor relationships to recommend for installation on a computer system comprising: selecting one or more patch analyzer programs from a collection of such programs; executing each selected program, causing it to generate issues by processing a set of patches compatible with the selected program and with the computer system's installed operating system, programs, and patches; identifying, for as many of these issues as practicable, goals that call for the installation of a patch or one of its successors; and generating mutually consistent patch installation recommendations that satisfy as many goals as possible and that satisfy any dependencies of a patch on the prior installation of other patches, guided by patch attributes and successor relationships.