Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Gurashish Brar

Joe Keng Yap

Trevor McDiarmid

Ethan Joseph Bernstein

Patrick Tousignant

Tali Roth

Dmitri Gavrilov

Aditi Desai

Umut Alev

Fernando Garcia

Jefferson B Criddle

Victor Wang

Vamsi Kanamaluru

Mike Borysenko

Jonathan Lecroy

Kristofer Hellick Reierson

Neil Adam Jacobson

Anthony Douglas Krueger

Hui Li

Matthew R Yandek

A cloud service stores and aggregates content that is obtained from different content sources using different protocols. For example, the content may include electronic messages, calendar information, contacts, social network content, feed data, search results, and the like. The cloud service aggregates content for each user based on the user's configuration settings. The cloud service may perform processing on the aggregated content before it is delivered and displayed to the user on the client device. For example, one or more views may be generated and stored by the cloud service before the view is requested from the client. Changes made to the aggregated content on the client may be synchronized with the content source. Searches may be made across all or a portion of the different content sources that are aggregated for a user.

Aggregating content from different content sources at a cloud service

Application virtualization at the thread level, rather than at the process level. the operation of a thread across virtualization contexts. For instance, one virtualization context might be a native environment, whereas another virtualization context might be a virtualization environment in which code running inside a virtualization package has access to virtualized computing resources. A thread operating in a first virtualization context then enters an entry point to code associated with a second virtualization context. For instance, a native thread might enter a plug-in operating as part of a virtualized package in a virtualization environment. While the thread is operating on the code, the thread might request access to the second computing resources associated with the second virtualization environment. In response, the thread is associated with the second virtualization context such that the thread has access to the second computing resources associated with the second virtualization context.

Thread operation across virtualization contexts

Embodiments are directed to rapidly launching a virtual software application using on-demand file staging, rapidly launching a virtual software application using on-demand registry staging and to rapidly publishing a virtual software application using on-demand staging. In one scenario, a computer system creates a high-level file listing that includes a list of specified high-level data files and directories that are part of a virtual application package. The computer system receives an indication from an application user that the virtual application is to be accessed and dynamically creates sparse data files for those data files that are to be accessed based on the received indication. Then, upon determining that the virtual application is attempting to access the sparse data files, the computer system dynamically streams the data corresponding to the sparse data files on demand from the remote data store.

Fast application streaming using on-demand staging

Disclosed here are implementations involving an application program that includes an event handling portion. The event handling portion monitors for an event associated with execution of an initial portion of the application program downloaded with the event handling portion that involves an additional portion of the application program not yet downloaded. In response to detecting the event, the execution of the initial portion of the application program is paused by the event handler and downloading of the additional portion is initiated. Upon downloading the additional portion of the application program, execution of the initial portion of the application program can resume.

Event-responsive download of portions of streamed applications

Virtual applications are automatically kept up to date with the current version of a virtual application. Instead of the client having to obtain the entire version of the current virtual application, the client obtains the portions of the current virtual application that are changed from its version of the virtual application. After obtaining the changes needed to update its version of the virtual application, the client integrates those changes into its version of the virtual application.

Virtualized application image patching

Technologies are described herein for generating a local copy of a virtualized application package from a local installation. An empty copy of the virtualized application package is generated from a skeleton file. The skeleton file contains a hash value computed from each data block in the virtualized application package. The component files of the application are retrieved from a virtual file system representation of the location installation of the application, and each component file is divided into one or more blocks of data. A hash value is computed for each block of data and the skeleton file is searched for a hash value corresponding to a data block of the virtualized application file that matches the hash value computed for each block of data. If a match is found, the block of data is copied to the corresponding data block of the empty copy of the virtualized application package.

Generating a local copy of a virtualized application package from a local installation

Embodiments provide an optimized virtual application or suite of virtual applications, but are not so limited. In an embodiment, components of a system are configured to generate an optimized virtual package that can be used in a virtual application streaming environment. Components of the system can provide bits of the optimized virtual package based in part on scenario mappings associated with a user action and/or an application or application feature. In one embodiment, a client virtualization handler can operate to download byte ranges of an optimized virtual package including re-prioritizing byte range download operations as part of streaming virtual application functionality over a computing network.

Streaming optimized virtual application images

A determination is made as to whether an updated image for an outdated virtualized application is available on a server. If it is determined that the updated image is available, then a background download operation configured to retrieve the updated image from the server is initiated. Another determination is made as to whether the outdated virtualized application is being utilized. After the background download operation is complete, if it is determined that the outdated virtualized application is not being utilized, then the outdated virtualized application is transformed to a current virtualized application by replacing at least a portion of the outdated virtualized application with the updated image. The outdated virtualized application and the current virtualized application are configured to be executed on the computer without installation on a computer.

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Snoqualmie, WA, United States of America

Gurashish Brar