Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Dennis A Morgan

David V Gunter

Gurdeep Singh Pall

Alexandru Gavrilescu

Benjamin E Nick

Mark Aran Aiken

Sherwood H Lawrence

Patrice Lynn Miner

Aaron Wesley Cunningham

Marieke Iwema Watson

Haiyong Wang

Art Shelest

Bruce E Johnson

David Charles LeBlanc

Jonathan Lee Burstein

Kenneth Lynn Crocker

Eduard Guzovsky

Richard H Lamb

The claimed method and system provides a graphical user interface that illustrates network topology information, including connection paths between devices on the local network and an external network such as the Internet. The claimed method and system may use a three column format for presenting the topology that is more intuitive for a user. Also, the claimed method and system may aggregate context and connection information from multiple different protocols to provide the topology display. Further, the claimed method and system may use a device registry to enable customized and extensible representations of the network devices.

Network map

A software network bridge which allows connected network segments to be presented as a single network unit to the host computer. The software bridge can be implemented as an intermediate network driver, abstracting multiple network segments into a single network interface for higher level protocols and applications. The intermediate network driver can simultaneously send the same data packet through multiple network interfaces by creating multiple packet descriptors, each pointing to the same data, but each given individually to the underlying network interfaces to control during their transmission.

Exposing a bridged network as a single virtual segment

A method for a firewall-aware application to communicate its expectations to a firewall without requiring the firewall to change its policy or compromise network security. An application API is provided for applications to inform a firewall or firewalls of the application's needs, and a firewall API is provided that informs the firewall or firewalls of the application's needs. An interception module watches for connect and listen attempts by applications and services to the network stack on the local computer. The interception module traps these attempts and determines what user is making the attempt, what application or service is making the attempt, and conducts a firewall policy look-up to determine whether the user and/or application or service are allowed to connect to the network. If so, the interception module may instruct the host and/or edge firewall to configure itself for the connection being requested.

Method of assisting an application to traverse a firewall

A software tool and method are provided which allow an unsophisticated user to easily determine or identify problems in a networked computer system. The software tool comprises a diagnostic component adapted to determine at least one attribute associated with the computer system, and a user interface component adapted to launch the diagnostic component and to render the attribute to a user. The diagnostic component may obtain first information related to a local host computer, and selectively perform one or more tests associated with the local host computer according to the first information. The diagnostic component then determines the attribute according to the first information and/or the test results. A self-healing networked computer system is also disclosed, comprising the diagnostic component and a remedial object adapted to perform one or more remedial actions according to the attribute.

Consumer network diagnostic agent

A system and method is provided for detecting, monitoring and maintaining an Internet Connection Sharing Device (ICSD). An ICSD may be connected to one or more devices, and/or applications associated with a Local Area Network (LAN), which devices, and/or applications, may attempt to detect, monitor and maintain the ICSD. Thus, a broadcast protocol for advertising status and services and a unicast request/response protocol are provided to facilitate such detection, monitoring and maintenance.

Beacon protocol for internet connection sharing devices

A software network bridge is disclosed which allows the connected network segments to be presented as a single network unit to the host computer. The software bridge can be implemented as an intermediate network driver, abstracting multiple network segments into a single network interface for higher level protocols and applications. While the intermediate network driver acts as a software bridge implementing the Spanning Tree Algorithm, it also acts a network interface driver to higher level protocols, conglomerating information from the multiple underlying network interface cards and forwarding along commands from the higher level software to the appropriate network interface card. The intermediate network driver can also simultaneously send the same data packet through multiple network interfaces by creating multiple packet descriptors, each pointing to the same data, but each given individually to the underlying network interfaces to control during their transmission. Further efficiencies can also be achieved by the software bridge, implemented as an intermediate network driver, through the use of a dynamic allocation scheme which increases the size of the useable buffers of each network interface without increasing the overall memory consumption, and the use of a queuing scheme which preliminarily examines incoming data packets to determine if any processing needs to be performed, and queues the packets should they require processing. Additionally, a user interface is presented exposing this functionality of the intermediate network driver.

Bridging multiple network segments and exposing the multiple network segments as a single network to a higher level networking software on a bridging computing device

Exposing multiple network interfaces as a single network interface to a higher level networking software

Growing community of inventors

Issaquah, WA, United States of America

Dennis A Morgan