An automated heterogeneous configurator employs a technique by which the state of a context can be changed and restored automatically to facilitate the configuration of systems having components that span multiple contexts. The technique employs a high level constraint that is programmed into the component class of a model that requires a component object to determine the appropriate context for that object at the beginning of its installation within the configuration, and if the current state of the context is not that which is appropriate for the object component, the installation process for the component changes the state of the context to reflect that which is appropriate for the component. The most common context is the product line context, but any other context pertinent to the configuration of heterogeneous systems can be applied to this technique.