Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Christopher J Guzak

George H Pitt, Iii

Satoshi Nakajima

Chee Heng Chew

Joseph D Belfiore

Stuart T Laney

Ian Michael Ellison-Taylor

Ron Oded Gery

Neil W Konzen

Mark A Malamud

Royce A Levien

Benjamin Betz

Jeffrey Lawrence Bogdan

Relja Ivanovic

Felix Gti Andrew

Seetharaman Harikrishnan

Daniel Oliver

Brandon H Paddock

Christopher E Graham

Jeffrey T Parsons

Tandy W Trower, Ii

Randall Lee Kerr

Adrian M Wyard

Kurt J Eckhardt

Ramaswamy Krishnan-Chittur

Stephen M Madigan

Michael Jay Gilmore

John E Elsbree

Rolf Arnold Ebeling

Ronald Otto Radko

Scott David Hoogerwerf

Brian D Wentz

Kelly Elizabeth Rollin

Giles Edward Van Der Bogert

Frederick J DeWitt

Arun Gurunathan

Stephane St-Michel

Aryeh N Polsky

Brendan M Dohm

Techniques for application activation are described herein. An operating system (OS) can be configured to incorporate various extension points that are serviceable through contracts defining individual invocations of extensible functionality. The extensible functionality is integrated as part of the OS and controlled by the OS in a centralized manner. However, the specific implementations of the extensible functionally are offloaded to applications using the contracts. For example, the OS can include or otherwise make use of a centralized application activation component that employs an object-oriented approach to invoke applications to perform particular contracts. The application activation component can pass information describing a particular contract to activate a designated application and enable the application to service the contract in the manner specified by the OS. In this way, the manner in which contracts are handled by application code can be managed and coordinated through a centralized application activation component.

Application activation framework

File management user interface techniques are described. In one or more implementations, properties of a file are displayed in a user interface by a computing device. In response to selection of a particular one of the properties in the user interface, one or more representations of one or more other files that include a corresponding value of the particular property are displayed, respectively, of the file.

File management user interface

A method and apparatus for transferring user profiles between computing devices using portable storage devices is disclosed. A portable storage device (PSD) is connected to a computing device, the computing device reads user profile data from the PSD and configures itself according to that data. If the user profile data is changed on the computing device, those changes are synchronized on the PSD.

Transfer of user profiles using portable storage devices

An operating system provides extensions through which application developers may extend the capabilities of a shell of the operating system. For example, application developers may add menu items to context menus for objects that are visible within an integrated system name space. In addition, developers may add property sheet pages for such objects. Application developers also have the option of providing per-instance icons for each instance of an object. Application developers may provide data object extension handlers for customizing data sources on a per-object class basis and may provide drop target extension handlers on a per-object class basis to customize drop target behavior. Developers may additionally provide copy-hook handlers to regulate file system operations on objects. Developers may also extend the functionality provided by the shell of the operating system by adding their own custom name spaces to the integrated system name space. The mechanism provided by the operating system to add such a name space is polymorphic and transparent to users.

Shell extensions for an operating system

The present invention provides a common namespace for Internet and local filesystem objects. In a preferred embodiment, the common namespaces constructed by first accessing a namespace definition table. The namespace definition table contains entries referencing both a filesystem namespace subtree definition module and an Internet namespace subtree definition module. The entry referencing the filesystem namespace subtree definition module is used to access the filesystem namespace subtree definition module in order to define a filesystem namespace subtree that encompasses filesystem addresses. Similarly, the entry referencing the Internet namespace subtree definition module is used to access the Internet namespace subtree definition module to define an Internet namespace subtree that encompasses Internet addresses. The defined filesystem and Internet namespace subtrees are then combined in order to assemble a namespace encompassing both filesystem addresses and Internet addresses.

Common namespace for internet and local filesystem objects

A method and system for automatically running a program stored on a medium upon detection of insertion of the medium into a drive are provided. The operating system periodically polls the drive regarding the status of the drive. After receiving a response from the drive regarding the drive's status, the operating system determines whether the drive's status has changed. If the drive's status has changed, the operating system broadcasts a message indicating the change in the drive's status. When the shell receives a message from the operating system indicating a change in the drive's status, the shell determines whether the change in the drive's status indicates that a medium has been inserted into the drive. If the change in the drive's status indicates that a medium has been inserted into the drive, the shell searches for a predefined file on the medium. The shell then runs a program stored on the medium that is specified in the predefined file. Thus, the running of the program on the medium is performed without any action being required on the part of a user.

Method and system for automatically running a program

A computer program product has a facility for uninstalling itself. The facility is both efficient and dynamic. The facility only backs up a minimal set of files that may be affected by an installation of the computer program product. The facility dynamically adapts to different possible installations so as to only store backup copies for the particular installation that is to be used. The facility leverages a number of installation files to determine what files to back up.

Method and facility for uninstalling a computer program package

New varieties of child window controls are provided as system resources that application programs may exploit. The preferred embodiment of the present invention provides a dynamic link library (DLL) for implementing the new child window controls as part of an operating system. The new child window controls include a header bar control for providing header bars in application programs. The new controls also include a hot key control that allows a user to view and edit hot key combinations. The new controls further include a tab control for establishing tabs that differentiate amongst pages in user interfaces provided by application programs. An image list data type is defined and functions are provided for manipulating the image list data type. Image lists include multiple like-sized images that are stored efficiently in a single bitmap.

System provided child window controls

A tree view control is provided as a system resource that may be used by application programs. The tree view control enables an application program to display a hierarchical list of items. The hierarchical list of items may be expandable or collapsible so as to vary the view of the hierarchical tree that is visible to a user. The expansion and collapsing of the tree is performed by a mechanism that is independent of the selection mechanism that is used to select items in the hierarchical tree. An in-place editing mechanism is provided to facilitate the in place editing of labels of items in the hierarchical tree. As an optimization, the tree view control may provide for deferred evaluation of items such that the display information needed to display an item on an output device is not evaluated until needed.

Tree view control

A computer system provides expanded clipboard formats that embellish the number of formats that may be used with a clipboard. These expanded clipboard formats enable users in applications to broaden their use of the clipboard and other data transfer mechanisms. The clipboard formats may be utilized by a conventional clipboard, by drag-and-drop mechanisms and by OLE data transfer mechanisms. Certain of the expanded clipboard formats are adapted for use in the data transfer of non-file system objects.

Data transfer with expanded clipboard formats

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Kirkland, WA, United States of America

Christopher J Guzak