Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Jason Ghssane Salameh

John Michael Sheehan

Phillip E Smith

Adam D Stritzel

John James Vintzel

Andres Carlo Petralli

William L Cheng

Abolade Gbadegesin

Adam M Smith

Erik Fortune

Sarjana Sheth

Jonathan David Wiswall

Kunal Gandhi

Sarjana Sheth Mitra

Logananth Seetharaman

Wade H Curtiss

Hemchander Venkateshwara Sannidhanam

Simon Leet

Muhammad Usman Anwer

Jeremy B Gup

Cory Alan Hendrixson

Jill Cary Bender

Chin Hung Lam

Daniel Ryan Mitchell

Denise Su-Li Goh

Fan Xiao

Sandeep P George

Samuel Aaron Beard

Carl W Russell

Andy Liu

John R Schmeichel

Letao Wang

Kelly W Connell

Phillip Smith

Jonathan L Davis

Ravi Kiran Kunapuli

Kyle Grayson Conroy

Techniques for multiuser application platform are described. Generally, a multiuser application allow interaction by multiple different users with a single executing instance of the application. Implementations include a multiuser operating system and a multiuser application programming interface that enable interaction by multiple users with an executing instance of a multiuser application.

Multiuser application platform

Methods, systems, and apparatuses for publishing, acquiring, and servicing of related software packages together. Flexible yet robust software package version control through joint servicing using atomic sets, including business software applications and consumer software applications, is performed by client and developer devices in conjunction with a host server. Developers and publishers develop and provide applications and assign specific, related versions of software packages, that are jointly operable per atomic sets embodied in atomic set manifests, in software program bundles for acquisition by end users. Adherence to jointly serviced software packages using atomic sets is performed by client devices and/or servers in a manner that is transparent to the end user. The end user is enabled to acquire all or less than all software packages that make up an atomic set, yet each software package acquired adheres to the version requirements set forth by the atomic set.

Joint servicing of software packages

A computing system is provided that includes a distribution endpoint including one or more processors configured to receive a request from a developer computing device to update a program managed by the distribution endpoint, the program being previously packaged and signed. The one or more processors of the distribution endpoint are further configured to receive a code file including a change to the program, retrieve a package of the program that has not been updated with the change to the program, generate an updated package of the program by adding the code file to the retrieved package of the program such that the updated package of the program logically represents a package of the updated program, and distribute the updated package of the program to an end user computing device.

Updating program packages at distribution endpoint

For applications that are designed to operate across multiple computer environments, an application distribution service may store multiple different versions of application packages, the different versions being applicable to different computing environments. Application targeted metadata associated with the application packages may be utilized to quickly diagnose the applicability of the application packages to a client device with low bandwidth cost, and before any package distribution is commenced.

Deployment meta-data based applicability targetting

Registration of an application in a per-user registration model includes the creation and storage of duplicate registration data for multiple user accounts present on a system. This duplication of registration data may be reduced by storing at least a portion of identical data in a per-machine location in the system memory where it is accessible to all user accounts. Instead of needing to separately re-compute and/or re-store duplicate registration data in multiple per-user locations in the memory, each user account may access and utilize the registration data stored in the per-machine location. Pre-computing and storing a portion of the application registration data in a per-machine location in the memory may also allow the system to defer the registration of the application.

De-duplication of per-user registration data

One or more techniques and/or systems are provided for generating a bundle package, digitally signing the bundle package, selectively disturbing the bundle package, and/or indexing one or more resource packages retrieved from the bundle package. That is, a bundle package (e.g., an application or game bundle package) comprises one or more app packages comprising application code configured to execute on various computing environments (e.g., operating systems, processors, etc.). The bundle package may comprise one or more resource packages comprising supplemental data used to provide optional user experience functionality for the application (e.g., French language support, high resolution textures, a gaming pad support, etc.). In this way, a client device may selectively download portions of the bundle package that may be relevant, which may mitigate download bandwidth, storage space, or resources otherwise used to obtain unnecessary portions of the bundle package (e.g., a tablet device may merely download low resolution textures).

Bundle package generation

Deploying applications to a device often involves generating an application package for installing the application anew, and application patches for updating the application from a specific first version to a specific second version. Presented herein are alternative techniques for deploying the application to devices using a block map indicating hashcodes for respective blocks of respective resources of the application. A device may install the application by installing the application package, or may update a deployed application from an earlier version to a later version by retrieving the block map, identifying updated blocks having a different hashcode than the current hashcode of the block in the currently deployed application, and retrieving only the updated blocks. The block map also enables concurrent deployment of multiple application versions, and resource sharing among deployed versions and variants by sharing commonly used blocks and retaining alternatives of blocks differing between such versions and variants.

Application packages using block maps

Growing community of inventors

Bothell, WA, United States of America

Jason Ghssane Salameh