Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Anthony J Lorelli

William P Campbell

David Gregory Grant

Silviu C Calinoiu

Pavan Kasturi

Baskar Sridharan

Jonathan David Morrison

Abdelsalam Heddaya

Mujtaba S Khambatti

Tristan P K Schmelcher

A mitigation enablement module for a computer that improves application reliability. When performing memory management operations, the mitigation enablement module and associated memory manager selectively use mitigations that are intended to prevent an application bug from cause an application error. The memory manager may selectively apply mitigations for each of one or more applications based on the likelihood that such mitigations are successful at preventing bugs from causing application errors. The likelihood is determined from historical information on whether the mitigations, when applied, prevented bugs from causing memory operations that could cause application errors. This historical information can be gathered on a single computer over multiple invocations of the application or may be aggregated from multiple computers, each invoking the application. The determined likelihood may then be used to determine whether or for how long to apply the mitigation actions for memory operations requested by the application.

Memory management techniques selectively using mitigations to reduce errors

Techniques for performing memory management to mitigate memory errors. In accordance with the principles described herein, a memory management module may be implemented that acts in different modes of operation for each of one or more software modules that are instances of applications. In one mode of operation, memory operations may be performed in accordance with one or more mitigation actions, and in another mode of operation, the memory management module performs memory operations as requested, without performing mitigation actions. A memory management module may maintain a record in a data store associated with the memory management module that may be used to determine whether to enable the mitigations. In some implementations, records maintained by each of a plurality of computing devices may be aggregated at a central server and this aggregated information may be used to adjust the entries on each of the computing devices.

Configuration of memory management techniques selectively using mitigations to reduce errors

Techniques for performing memory management to mitigate memory errors. In accordance with the principles described herein, a memory management module may be implemented that acts in different modes of operation for each of one or more software modules issuing requests for performance of memory operations to the memory management module. In one mode of operation, one or more mitigation actions may be performed by the memory management module in addition to or instead of the memory operation requested by the calling software module, such that the memory operations are performed in accordance with the mitigation actions. These mitigation actions may serve to reduce a likelihood of a memory error negatively affecting the calling software module. In another mode of operation, the memory management module performs memory operations as requested, without performing mitigation actions.

Evaluating effectiveness of memory management techniques selectively using mitigations to reduce errors

Process reflection techniques are described in which a reflected process is created to facilitate analysis of a process. Events are detected to initiate reflection of a target process. Process reflection of a target process may be initiated by an external process or by the target process itself. A reflected process of the target process is created. In an implementation, data defining the target process is replicated, copied, or otherwise collected from the target process to create the reflected process. Then, analysis may be performed on the reflected process while execution of the target process continues.

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Kirkland, WA, United States of America

Anthony J Lorelli