Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

David Andrew Whitechapel

Michael Shneerson

Abolade Gbadegesin

Akhilesh Kaza

Timothy Michael Kurtzman

Adina Magdalena Trufinescu

Andrew Clinick

Thomas E Quinn

Samarth Harish Shah

Jeremy P Robinson

William A Robertson

Pallavi Vajranabhaiah

Daniel A Molina

Anis Mohammed Khaja Mohideen

Igor A Zinkovsky

Jason William Fuller

Yasser Elsayed Shaaban

Phillip Michael Hoff

Vladimir Yuryevich Morozov

Hart Wilson

Justin Horst

Conrad Chang

Richard A Cook

Dimitar Birov

Michael W Morton

John Durant

Sergei Ognerubov

Misha Shneerson

Vijayendra G R Vasu

In non-limiting examples of the present disclosure, systems, methods and devices for selectively virtualizing software application functions are presented. An application package for a containerized software application may be received. The application package may comprise an application manifest and a virtualization exclusion for a first location of a global file system of the computing device. The containerized software application may be installed in a container comprising a virtual file system. An indication to write a first new file at the first location may be received by the containerized software application. A determination may be made that the first location comprises the virtualization exclusion. The first new file may be written to the first location of the global file system based on the determination that the first location comprises the virtualization exclusion.

Flexible virtualization of application data for specified system locations

In one embodiment, a computer system stores entries for one or more instances of an application with keys generated for the instances in storage. The instances of the application are instantiated on the computer system. The computer system receives a request from the application with a current key for a current instance and parses the storage to determine if the current key is stored in the keys associated with the application. The computer system returns a response to the application with an indication whether the current key is stored as an entry in the one or more entries. The application uses the response to determine a redirection action to one of the one or more instances of the application when the current key is associated with an instance other than the current instance.

Selective application instance activation

Resources used by a foreground process associated with an application as well as one or more background tasks associated with the application that are running as separate processes on the computing device are tracked. Historical data relating to resource usage by the application is utilized to predict a resource usage amount for the application which is then stored. A subsequent launch of the application can be conditioned upon whether the predicted resource usage amount is available. If the predicted resource usage amount is available, it can be allocated to the application and the application can be launched. If the application then exceeds the predicted resource usage amount, other processes executing concurrently therewith may be terminated to free up the resource. Regardless of how the application performs, new resource usage data is obtained for the application, which is then used to adjust the predicted resource usage amount.

Resource management based on device-specific or user-specific resource usage profiles

Techniques are described that enable an application executing on a computing device to dynamically control how an allocated portion of a resource of the computing device is to be divided among multiple processes associated with the application. For example, an application executing on the computing device may interact with an operating system of the computing device to dynamically control how an allocated portion of a resource of the computing device is to be divided among a foreground process associated with the application and one or more background processes associated with the application.

Dynamic resource management for multi-process applications

Innovations for resource management are described herein. For example, resource management organizes resources as pools that are associated with different types of workloads. The resource management can be implemented as part of an application layer framework and/or operating system of a computing device. A budget is established at design time for the resources of the computing device. Each type of workload primarily draws from resources dedicated to that type of workload in the associated pool under the budget, as enforced by the operating system. This can help provide acceptable performance for those workloads that are permitted to run, while preventing resources of the mobile computing device from becoming spread too thin among workloads. It can also help maintain a good overall balance among different types of workloads.

Quota-based resource management

A managed composite control can be directly (without intermediary hosting layers) hosted within an unmanaged hosting application. A managed control which can host managed composite controls is provided, the managed control being directly hostable within any unmanaged hosting control. An adapter (control) wraps the managed control content before the control content is moved into the unmanaged layer. Overloaded methods are provided that accept managed controls and manage communication between layers in such a way that instead of internal references expecting a user control, the internal references expect an object.

Light-weight managed composite control hosting

A method and system for dynamically identifying and loading a version of a runtime for custom code of a host application without modifying the host application is provided. A loading system dynamically identifies the version of the runtime during execution of the host application. The loading system is also dynamically linked into the host application so that its algorithm for identifying the version of the runtime can be modified without modifying the host application. When requested by the host application to load custom code, the loading system identifies a version of the runtime to load, loads the identified version of the runtime, and then requests a load component of the loaded version of the runtime to load the custom code.

Version-resilient loader for custom code runtimes

The invention enables document level controls to be added to applications which display documents by using an application level add-in. The application level add-in tracks document opening and closing and dynamically constructs the document level control accordingly to ensure that the document level control is active only while the document is open.

Document-level features in add-ins

When objects are called by a program written in a strongly-typed language using an interface written in a loosely-typed manner, incompatibilities between the programming languages can cause problems. Extension methods can simplify the interface between objects in an object model and a program written in a strongly-typed programming language by providing method overloads that accept strongly-typed parameters. Extension methods are provided that use method overloads that accept strongly-typed parameters, improving type safety by allowing the compiler to enforce type safety rather than relying on type checking at runtime. Nullable types and object initialization may be used to provide strongly-typed optional parameters. Extension methods can be used to support parameterized properties and to support class indexers, enabling query of collections of in-memory objects.

Using extension methods to extend COM objects

A method and architecture for increasing version resiliency between a host application that is unmanaged code and managed code is provided. A version resiliency technique specifies that the host application and the managed code communicate via an adapter that implements a protocol to access an object exposed by the host application. The version resiliency technique specifies that when a new version of the host application that impacts an interface exposed by the object of the host application is released, a new version of the adapter that executes within the application domain of the custom code is released. A version of managed code that adheres to the protocol will correctly interact with new versions of the host application that include a new version of the object because a new implementation of the adapter is also provided.

Version resiliency for a host application and managed code

A method and architecture for increasing version resiliency between a host application that is unmanaged code and custom code that is managed code is provided. A host application exposes an application-level object and a document-level object. A custom code runtime provides a wrapper for the document-level object within the application domain of the custom code runtime. The custom code runtime also provides a mechanism within the application domain of the custom code runtime for providing to custom code a reference to the application-level object directly, rather than through a wrapper. Custom code can then access functionality of the application-level object directly using the reference without having to use a wrapper provided by the custom code runtime.

Version resiliency for a host application and custom code

The forms hosting system allows a developer to design custom Outlook form regions containing standard and custom managed controls using popular development tools. The forms hosting system provides a runtime wrapper that appears to Outlook as a normal ActiveX control. When Outlook invokes the runtime wrapper control, the runtime wrapper control loads the managed controls defined by the developer. The runtime wrapper control translates messages received from Outlook into messages understood by the managed controls.

Developing controls for outlook add-ins

Various technologies and techniques are disclosed for enabling ribbon re-loading through a proxy add-in. A ribbon proxy add-in is loaded that has ribbon customizations for a ribbon of a primary add-in. The primary add-in is also loaded. At a later point in time, the ribbon proxy add-in is unloaded and reloaded, which causes a host application to re-query the ribbon proxy add-in for the ribbon customizations. Since the ribbon proxy add-in points to the ribbon customizations of the primary add-in, the ribbon of the primary add-in is updated as a result.

Growing community of inventors

Seattle, WA, United States of America

David Andrew Whitechapel