Described is installing multiple software packages to a computing device in a single transaction, whereby the multiple package installation commits if successful, or the device is rolled back to a determined state if unsuccessful. A client process provides a system service (installer) with a package, and the service partitions package installation actions into execution, commit and rollback phases, with the execution phase run for each package. If successful, the transaction is committed by performing the multiple commit phases. If unsuccessful, the installation is rolled back via the rollback phases. The phases may be interleaved, with execution and commit phases performed in FIFO order, and rollback phases performed in LIFO order. A client process may dynamically determine which packages to install, a client process may be embedded in a package and join the transaction, and/or one client process may delegate control to another client to add package actions to the transaction.