International Business Machines Corporation

Jeffrey A Grantz

Robert Milton Smith

Ralph O Conder

William N Tindall

Scott Alan Plaetzer

J Robert Ure

Laurence Edward England

Daniel Rodman Hicks

Paul P Giangarra

Steven M Zanoni

Brigitte D Anschuetz

Michael S Kogan

William Peter Carney

Dean C Oakes

George Lausman

A method is provided to permit copies of software products to be installed on systems, with a predetermined delay before commencement of a designated test period. The predetermined delay provides for a cumulative elapsed time, beginning with the installation of the software product to be evaluated during the designated test period, to allow for miscellaneous starts of the computer system prior to productive use for the purpose of evaluation during the user trial period. The miscellaneous starts may be associated with software product installation procedures during preload activities, attachment of devices and/or adapters to tailor the system to a particular user configuration, or to otherwise 'boot' or check the system prior to productive use.

Apparatus and method to allow a user a trial period before licensing a

An improved method and system is described for generalized handling of conditions occurring during program execution in a computer system having a multi-language Condition Manager (CM). A general signaling routine having object code for an external entry point suitable for linking to application programs written in any language supporting external calls is used. The signaling routine may be used by programs to eliminate the step of checking return codes from subroutines by coding the subroutine to automatically signal the proper condition to the CM which in conjunction with user defined condition handlers takes proper actions in response to the condition. A general condition token which may be used as a feedback token is defined as a condition identifier, a format code for the condition identifier, a severity code for the condition, a control code for a facility identifier, a facility identifier and an optional handle for instance specific information. The signaling routine and the feedback token are used by subroutines which can optionally provide for passing an address, where a feedback token can be stored. The subroutine signals conditions if the severity of the condition is greater than a threshold or else stores a feedback token at the address.

Computer program product and program storage device for representing and

A condition handling method and means capable of handling programs written in a plurality computer programming languages is created by a set of routines which implement the Common Condition Handling (CCH) function. These routines have entry points which are declared as external or entry variables which enables application programs to link to them. The compilers and application programs can then interact with the condition handling process by calling or branching to the entry points in the common condition handling code when the program is executing. Language specific condition handling routines and user condition handlers are invoked using a last-in-first-out (LIFO) queue to associate the handlers with the current stack frame. Any handler may respond to the CCH with one of three types of requests: Resume, Percolate, and Promote. A separate means is provided for registering Exit Handlers and to move the resume cursor.

Condition handling in a multi-language computer program

Method and apparatus for providing a trial period for a software license

A method of maintaining functional compatibility after performing system maintenance on a computer during system operation is described. The method starts when there is a request to perform system maintenance by determining if a directory holding a set of files to be maintenanced has adequate space for a set of new files. The system maintenance typically occurs when the operating system is to be replaced by a new operating system or upgraded with an improved version of the current operating system. Next, the system, in response to there being adequate space to for the new set of files, places the new set of files in the directory. Each file within the new set of files is given a new name within the directory. Each file in the set of old files in the directory is then renamed with a temporary name. The new names of the new set of files are then placed in an alias table for access by any other files open on the computer during maintenance. In response to a file request for one of new files with a new name in the alias table, the system accesses one of the old files with a temporary name instead of the request for the new file, thus preserving system integrity and compatibility during the system maintenance.

Protecting a system during system maintenance by usage of temporary

Method for representing and signaling run-time program conditions

A data processing system is operable in a multitasking mode to include at least one process having a plurality of threads. Exception management is done on a per thread basis, as opposed to a per process basis. Further, when a process termination exception occurs, each thread is accessed to execute any process termination exception handler associated with the thread.

Per thread exception management for multitasking multithreaded operating

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Boca Raton, FL, United States of America

Jeffrey A Grantz