Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Crista Johnson

Phillip J Marino

Jeff A Zimniewicz

David V Winkler

Ryan M Helgeson

William M Nelson

A system and method are presented for a suite integration toolkit (SIT) allowing for the provision and display of a rich set of installation actions. The user interface (UI) provides a list box interface having pull down menus for the display and selection of component defined installation actions. Preferably the SIT is used to install a suite of applications having multiple components and sub-components. These components and sub-components are displayed with the install action selected and disk space required displayed. The UI also provides a summation of the required disk space of only those components that will actually be installed, taking into consideration and excluding from the summation required components that are already installed. An interface method is implemented by each of the components to expose a method to allow the SIT to query the component for its available installation actions and results.

System and method of providing multiple installation actions

A system and method are presented for a suite integration toolkit (SIT) allowing for the provision and display of a rich set of installation actions. The user interface (UI) provides a list box interface having pull down menus for the display and selection of component defined installation actions. Preferably the SIT is used to install a suite of applications having multiple components and sub-components. These components and sub-components are displayed with the install action selected and the disk space required displayed. The UI also provides a summation of the required disk space of only those components that will actually be installed, taking into consideration and excluding from the summation required components that are already installed. An interface method is implemented by each of the components to expose a method to allow the SIT to query the component for its available installation actions and results.

A system and method are presented for a suite integration toolkit (SIT) allowing for the provision and display of a rich set of installation actions. The user interface (UI) provides a list box interface having pull down menus for the display and selection of component defined installation actions. Preferably the SIT is used to install a suite of applications having multiple components and sub-components. These components and sub-components are displayed in a tree structure in the UI with the install action selected and the disk space required displayed. Differential coloring, shading, and text display are all used to enrich the understanding of the installation. The UI also provides a summation of the required disk space of only those components that will actually be installed, taking into consideration and excluding from the summation required components that are already installed. An interface method is implemented by each of the components to expose a method to allow the SIT to query the component for its available installation actions and results. This allows maximum flexibility in the definition and provision of the install actions.

A multiple stage installation system for the installation and setup of a suite of applications segregates and organizes the preparation, installation, clean up, optimization, etc. into functional groupings that define the multiple stages of the installation process. These functional groupings include actions to be performed on behalf of and to any and all of the applications to be installed. While different stages may be defined, the system preferably includes a pre-install phase, an install phase, and a post-install phase during which different functional activities are performed. An optimization phase may also be included to allow optimization of applications that have already been installed. In a preferred embodiment, the applications to be installed implement a COM interface that contains a method for each stage supported. The core installation system determines the installation order for the applications, acquires the COM interface from the application, and for each install stage, calls the appropriate method on that interface. Each application's method for a given stage is called before any methods of any applications for the next stage.

System and method of multiple-stage installation of a suite of applications

A method and system for installing software on a computer generates an installation order that ensures that a component required for the functioning of another component is already installed. Furthermore, it makes possible generating good installation orders to allow related components, e.g., in a software suite, to be installed close together, thus reducing disk swapping. The method and system take into account the existing configuration on a computer and allow removal of components along with dynamic reconfiguration of a computing system in response to a user's choice of an application program to launch. In accordance with the invention, preferably a developer includes information about the component's relationship with other components, e.g., a specific requirement for a preinstalled component or a requirement that a particular component not be present, thus requiring its removal. To remove the possibility of a single identifier referring to more than one component, the preferred embodiments of the invention use globally unique identifiers to label individual components.

Method and system for installing software on a computer system

A method and system for installing software on a computer prepares a computer system for the installation of a suite having a plurality of components. A setup program queries each component to determine which of the components is a prerequisite to the installation of the suite and which is a prerequisite for installation in a particular scenario. The setup program installs those components that are determined to be suite or scenario prerequisites on the computer system. The setup program creates a baseline installation image containing the installed components as well as the data elements required to complete the installation of the suite.

Presented is a system and method for creating, extending, or otherwise modifying an application program suite. Specifically, by writing setup database files for each individual application to be included in a suite in accordance with the data structure required by the Suite Integration Toolkit (SIT), these applications may be combined to form, or added to, a suite. Components for a suite are listed in several sections of the setup database file. Since this list is not set to any fixed number of components, the list can be changed at any time before setup.exe is run. Once setup.exe is run, the file is parsed for the information in the relevant sections. The data in these fields is used without any understanding of the specifics of the suite, which allows the SIT engine/technology to be ignorant of the specifics of the suite. As a result, the suite owner/writer is afforded the maximum flexibility in creating or modifying a suite of applications. In addition to integrating the applications into a suite thereby allowing a single seamless install/setup, the SIT engine of the instant invention also provides proper dependency checking and error recovery. During the installation of the suite, the SIT engine determines the superset of information needed by each application for acquisition from the user. If a single application requires different information for a particular field than that required by the other programs, a separate entry for that particular program will be generated and will supply that information only to that particular program.

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Seattle, WA, United States of America

Crista Johnson