Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Benjamin Salim Srour

Richard Jennings Duncan

Jesse Clay Satterfield

Gaurav S Anand

Kevin Michael Woley

Michael H Krause

Thomas Henry Alphin, Iii

Adam Edward Barrus

John Michael Calandrino

Zinaida A Pozen

Arun Upadhyaya Kishan

Chaitanya Dev Sareen

Hari R Pulapaka

Jan-Kristian Markiewicz

Bret P Anderson

Benjamin N Truelove

Nils Anders Sundelin

Matthew Isaac Worley

Gerrit H Hofmeester

George Joy

David Bradley Probert, Jr

Scott E Dart

Darren Louie

Brian S LeVee

Richard K Neves

Varun Ramesh Mani

Nathan J Kuchta

Evgeny Skarbovsky

Benjamin D L Stewart

Donovan P Regan

Anders Bertil Vinberg

Paul Adrian Oltean

Rebecca J Deutsch

Alexander M Sutton

Travis Austin Wright

Jeffrey J Johnson

Dustin Michael Ingalls

Corina Eva Feuerstein

Samer Fouad Sawaya

Ryan A Haveson

Steven Abrahams

Oded Yehuda Shekel

Marisol Ontaneda

Ramkumar Ramasubramanian

Baelson B Duque

Michael D McCormack

Kyle Thomas Beck

Henri-Charles Machalani

Mark Sterin

Clement Basile Fauchere

Sara Liu Yang

Haseeb Ahmed

MerryJane M Fosdick

Sarah W McDevitt

Joerg Christof Zender

Bahram Bahram Pour

Andrew James Koltz

Daniel W DeKlotz

David S Amenta

Robert Macklin

Andrew Timothy Hopper

Michael Todd La Riviere

Travis Dustin Sweat

Cary A Polen

Chris McGuire

Marina Dukhon Taylor

Elena Alina Angelescu

Antonia C Blume

Swagat Dasgupta

Thomas Alphin

Haohui Yin

Thomas H Iii Alphin

Joerg C Zender

Merryjane M Fosdick

Application closing techniques are described. In one or more implementations, a computing device recognizes an input as involving selection of an application displayed in a display environment by the computing device and subsequent movement of a point of the selection toward an edge of the display environment. Responsive to the recognizing of the input, the selected application is closed by the computing device.

Closing applications

Techniques enabling live tiles without application-code execution permit live content to be presented in tiles without executing code of applications associated with those tiles. By so doing, live tiles may be presented more safely, faster, or using fewer resources.

Live tiles without application-code execution

Metered network synchronization techniques are described. A current network connection of a computing device is checked as to whether the current network connection has been identified as a metered network. Access by a synchronization engine of the computing device to communicate via the current network connection to synchronize data of the computing device with another computing device is managed based at least in part on a setting associated with the metered network.

Metered network synchronization

A user of a device has an account with a service that stores copies of common data that is automatically made available to any of the user's devices and also stores copies of device-specific data that is available to the user on particular user-selected devices but is not automatically made available to all of the user's devices. A set of backed up devices can be displayed to the user of a particular device with various information describing the devices to facilitate user selection of a device, such as a visual representation of the type of the device that was backed up, a visual representation of a desktop or start screen display of the device that was backed up, and so forth. The user can select one of the displayed devices, and in response have the backed up device-specific data for the selected device copied to the particular device.

Service-based backup data restoring to devices

Techniques enabling live tiles without application-code execution are described. These techniques permit live content to be presented in tiles without executing code of applications associated with those tiles. By so doing, live tiles may be presented more safely, faster, or using fewer resources.

A notification service receives messages including various data from application services, and provides notifications including that data to the appropriate computing devices. Each computing device includes a notification system that receives notifications from the notification service and provides those notifications to the appropriate applications on the computing device. If an application is not allowed to run on a computing device, the notification system on the computing device provides an indication to the notification service to block notifications for the application on the computing device. The notification service ceases providing notifications to a computing device targeting applications for which notifications are blocked on the computing device until an indication is received from the computing device to unblock notifications for the application.

Power efficient brokered communication supporting notification blocking

Embodiments described herein relate to synchronizing configuration information between devices associated with a user. The synchronized configuration information can relate to application installations and uninstallations as well as to user modifications to user interfaces for managing and invoking the applications. For example, layouts of application representations provided by respective application launchers on a user's respective devices are kept automatically synchronized when the user modifies any of the layouts. Installations and uninstallations are similarly synchronized between the user's devices. Installations and uninstallations that might stem from synchronization may be circumscribed in various ways, such as by allowing the user to specify whether specific applications are to be installed/uninstalled only on specific devices or globally, by filtering propagation of synchronization updates according to hardware or software features and incompatibilities, or others.

Application install and layout syncing

Only a particular number of applications on a computing device are active at any given time, with applications that are not active being suspended. A policy is applied to determine when an application is to be suspended. However, an operating system component can have a particular application be exempted from being suspended (e.g., due to an operation being performed by the application). Additionally, an operating system component can have an application that has been suspended resumed (e.g., due to a desire of another application to communicate with the suspended application).

Resuming applications and/or exempting applications from suspension

In accordance with one or more aspects, an application that is to be suspended on a computing device is identified based on a policy. The policy indicates that applications that are not being used are to be suspended. The application is automatically suspended, and is allowed to remain in memory but not execute while suspended. Additionally, when memory is to be freed one or more suspended applications to terminate are automatically selected based on the policy, and these one or more selected applications are terminated.

Policy based application suspension and termination

Pre-installed application activation techniques are described in which live content for applications is activated before user interaction with the applications. Input indicative of an initial log-in of a user to access an operating system is detected. In response, configuration of an account for the user with the operating system may be initiated to set-up a device for first use by the user. During the configuration, notifications are activated through a notification system of the operating system to obtain live content for one or more pre-installed applications on the computing device. The activation occurs before interaction of the user with the pre-installed applications. Live content may then be incorporated with representations of the applications within a user interface for the operating system, such as displaying application tiles having corresponding live content in a start screen presented to the user after completion of the initial set-up.

Pre-installed application activation

The techniques and systems disclosed herein generally pertain to managing permissions for applications to allow the applications to run in a background state by an operating system. In some embodiments, user interfaces may be used to allow users to manage application permissions without requiring the user to understand specifics of background applications, but rather by providing a predetermined threshold number of permissions that the user can assign to applications. When the predetermined threshold number of permissions has been allocated and a subsequent application requests a permission, the user may replace or swap out an application that currently has a permission by giving the permission to the requesting application.

Background application management

Exempting applications from suspension

Growing community of inventors

Seattle, WA, United States of America

Benjamin Salim Srour