Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Andre F Vachon

Andrew L Bliss

Georgios Chrysanthakopoulos

Raymond Edward Endres

Reiner Fink

Corneliu I Lupu

Stuart T Laney

Yi Meng

Shawn Michael Murphy

Gregory W Nichols

Eric A LeVine

Gerald Francis Maffeo

William Hunter Hudson

Hany Farag

Barbara L Kess

Pat Styles

Gabriel J Aul

Kshitiz K Sharma

Mark David Whidby

Mohammad Jazayeri

Danial George Neault

Douglas Seth Laundry

Kinshuman Kinshuman

Geoff Pease

Jing Shan

A system and method to facilitate communication between a user interface and an associated process is disclosed. A first thread is associated with the user interface and a second thread is associated with the process for implementing requests by the user interface. At least one state buffer is operable to store state data for controlling ownership to the state buffer by the first and second threads for communicating data between the first and second threads. The architecture may be used in connection with a debugging system, such as to facilitate responsive interaction between the GUI and the associated debugging system.

Threading and communication architecture for a graphical user interface

A vertical can be a series of computer-executable instructions that, in response to an incident, collect information regarding that incident and transmit the information for analysis and possible helpful feedback to the user. A general purpose vertical can address types of incidents, such as crashes or hangs, across a variety of applications, while a custom vertical can be written to address application-specific incidents. Verticals can access underlying support mechanisms through an infrastructure, which can also enable applications to request that additional data be collected by the verticals, and set other preferences. Once the data is collected and transmitted, a vertical may receive feedback, that can be a request for additional information or feedback to the user. The feedback to the user can attempt to identify the incident and aid the user in recovering from it and avoiding it in the future.

Method and system for an incidental feedback platform

A large portion of software bugs are related to hangs. Analyzing and diagnosing hang-related bugs involves capturing data from a hung program and extracting attributes from the captured data. Extracting attributes from the capture data provides a scheme to determine relevant characteristics of the hang. Moreover, the extracted attributes may be compared to known issues and, based on that comparison, a bug may be classified as known or unknown. Alternatively, triage may be performed on the client computing device in order to determine the potential cause of the hang event. Once the potential cause of the hang event has been determined, troubleshooting steps may be performed on the client computing device to quarantine it. Ultimately, if the hang-inducing bug is known, a user may be provided with a solution to the bug. Alternatively, if the bug is unknown, implementations of the invention send the captured data to be analyzed and fixed by the software's provider.

Automatic root cause analysis and diagnostics engine

A system and method in which a remote network source maintains source code and symbol files for debugging purposes with automatic downloading of the correct files when they are needed. Files are remotely maintained based on unique data associated with that file (unique parameters) that are independent of the product name, release and/or build number. Such data includes time / date stamp information and file size, or signature and age data. When a given file is needed, such as to debug an executable code module, a symbol server at the client constructs a path (e.g., URL) to the needed file based on the unique information from the corresponding executable file, whereby the correct symbol file is accessed. Via that symbol file, the correct source file may be located and accessed. Security via authentication and access control lists may control access to the files, and authentication may be automatic.

Accessing remote stores of source and symbol data for use by computing tools

A two-computer crash dump scenario in which a snapshot of the physical memory of a target computer is extracted and stored by a host computer over an IEEE 1394 compliant serial bus is provided. A host computer debugger remotely stops execution of the core operating system of the target computer. Handshake information is then provided from the target computer core operating system to the host computer debugger. The handshake information specifies, among other information, one or more address ranges at which physical memory is present on the target computer. The host computer debugger then directly accesses the physical memory of the target computer system over the IEEE 1394 bus in accordance with the handshake information. The host computer then stores the contents of the physical memory of the target computer system. Execution of the core operating system of the target system can then be resumed, and the core operating system of the target computer can be debugged in parallel with the resumed execution of the target computer core operating system.

System and method for remotely creating a physical memory snapshot over a serial bus

A system and method is provided for generating a summary dump file from a system or application crash dump or core dump file without the need for referencing a large symbol table file. A crash dump file with a referencing portion containing references to certain pertinent information (e.g., data structures) including references conventionally not found in crash dump files. The data structures referenced in the referencing portion have been found to be optimal for analyzing faults residing in a crash dump file. The crash dump file may be a complete crash dump file of an operating system or a kernel memory dump. Alternatively, the crash dump file may be a crash dump file of an application program. A stand alone extraction tool is also provided for extracting pertinent information from the crash dump or core dump file by utilizing information in the referencing portion. The stand alone tool generates a summary or mini dump file of the crash dump file.

Creation of mini dump files from full dump files

To provide an expanded computer desktop working area, a forking driver is removably inserted logically between a graphical device interface program and a plurality of display device driver programs driving a plurality of computer monitor display screens. When inserted, the forking driver configures parameters for the screens to recognize capabilities common to the screens while also preserving significant capabilities of one of the screens representing a primary screen. The forking driver intercepts a function call directed to the device driver program corresponding to the primary screen and processes the function call to cause one or more of the device driver programs to change one or more screens in a manner consistent with the expanded working area.

Allocating display information

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Andre F Vachon