Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Adam Joseph Lenart

James George Cavalaris

James A Schwartz, Jr

David J Roth

Eric Frank Nelson

Jason C Knichel

Chad R Siefert

Cameron S Brodeur

Arvind M Murching

Samuel David Adams

Shyamal Kaushik Varma

Alessandro Domenico Scarpantoni

Ajay Preetham Barboza

Jordan Rian Cohen

Ullattil Shaji

Sharad Goel

Rajiv Poonamalli

Zachary Allan Lockard

Mark Henriksen Phaedrus

Faisal Ansari

Jordan Cohen

Jason Christopher Knichel

The present disclosure relates to devices and methods for creating one or more proxy devices in a guest device mirroring the devices hosted by a host device. The proxy devices may provide full device access functionality to applications running in the guest device. The devices and methods may load a proxy driver inside the guest device, which communicates with the host device. When applications running on the guest device interact with the proxy devices, the proxy driver communicates the interaction to the host device, which communicates with the device driver managing the device. The devices and methods allow applications running on the host and applications running on the guest to shares access to the same device.

Providing device abstractions to applications inside a virtual machine

Aspects of the disclosure provide a system having a memory area associated with a computing device and a processor. The processor executes to classify device panel descriptors and location descriptors according to associated device instances. The processor generates device panel objects using the classified device panel descriptors and location descriptors. A schema comprising device panel locations and adjacency relationship information is populated for the computing device based on the generated device panel objects. The processor provides the populated schema as dynamic device properties to one or more operations executing on the computing device.

Device panel capabilities and spatial relationships

The disclosure herein describes generating an ordered filter driver list defining a processing order of filter drivers in a device stack for a device. A filter driver level order associated with the device is defined, and a request from an entity is received for an ordered filter driver list. Filter driver data of filter drivers associated with the device is accessed from a data store. The filter driver data includes an identifier and filter driver level of each filter driver. The ordered filter driver list is generated to include the filter driver identifiers of the plurality of filter drivers in an order of the associated filter driver levels in the filter driver level order. The ordered filter driver list is provided to the entity. The use of filter driver levels and an associated order enables accurate, declarative order assignment of filter drivers.

Ordering filter drivers in a device stack with filter levels

A computer with cached pre-assembled device configurations for a faster and more reliable user experience. Pre-assembled device configurations may be obtained in a variety of ways, for example, by pre-processing installation information obtained from driver packages, or by being retrieved from a suitable source. Pre-processing driver packages may involve, for example, copying binary files to their run-time locations and computing settings for the device and driver. The pre-processed device configuration settings may be cached and indexed in a database. When a device connects to the computer, a cached device configuration may be applied to the device without performing a full installation process. Pre-assembly of device configurations may be performed before a device first connects to the computer, for example, upon detecting an applicable driver or during manufacture of the computer, and is not restricted to being performed on the same computer on which the device configuration will be used.

Device configuration with cached pre-assembled driver state

In one or more embodiments, hardware configuration state data for specialization of a portable installation of an operating system may be stored on a per hardware configuration basis. Specializations may include designation of boot start drivers, driver settings, device settings, and other state data that may vary based on hardware configurations of different machines on which the portable operating system is loaded. In a pre-boot environment, an identity of the current computing device is resolved and used to look-up corresponding hardware configuration state data that is available. When booting of the operating system on a new computing device is detected, the operating system is loaded using default state settings. An optimization routine may then be performed to create and store hardware specific hardware configuration state data for the computing device that defines specializations for subsequent boots of the operating system on the computing device.

Operating system hardware configuration state specialization

A firmware update system is described that collectively handles firmware updates for hardware resources of a computing device. The firmware update system may be configured to handle firmware updates in a consistent manner across different computing platforms/architectures. A data structure is defined to associate each updateable resource with a corresponding identifier to enumerate the updateable resources to the firmware update system. The firmware update system may reference the data structure to produce representations of the each individual resource that provide an operating system level abstraction through which detection, analysis, acquisition, deployment, installation, and tracking of firmware updates is managed. Using the representations, the firmware update system operates to discover available firmware updates collectively for the enumerated resources, match the updates to appropriate resources, and initiate installation of the updates.

Firmware update discovery and distribution

Firmware update system

An update platform is described that collectively handles driver and firmware updates for hardware resources of a computing device based on dependencies associated with the updates. The update platform may instantiate representations of each individual hardware resource as abstractions through which detection, analysis, acquisition, deployment, installation, and tracking of updates is managed. Using the representations, the update platform discovers available updates, matches configuration packages for the updates to appropriate resources, and initiates installation of the configuration packages. The update platform is further configured to recognize dependencies associated with the configuration packages. When dependencies are detected, corresponding configuration packages are marked to reflect the dependencies and activation is suspended until the dependencies are satisfied. Upon satisfaction of the dependencies, the dependencies are cleared and the configuration packages are activated. Configuration packages that are not associated with dependencies may be installed and activated 'normally' at any time.

Dependency based configuration package activation

A computer-implemented method for managing device drivers includes requesting a device driver update set for a plurality of devices connectable to a computing device. The method also includes receiving the device driver update set, installing each driver of the device driver update set on the computing device. At least one updated driver in the update set is an updated driver for a device that is disconnected from the computing device at the time of the request. The method further includes configuring the at least one updated driver for the non-connected to activate when the device is detected by the computing device.

Driver installation for targeted and non-present devices

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Seattle, WA, United States of America

Adam Joseph Lenart