Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Jonathan M Dreyer

Joseph E Provino

Mark M Towfigh

A virtual device driver registry for use in connection with a computer system for providing virtual device driver call information to a program operating in said computer system in response to a call information request. The virtual device driver registry maintains a registration database including a plurality of entries, each entry including a virtual device driver identifier and virtual device driver call information. The registry establishes the entries in the registration database in response to receipt of virtual device driver registration requests from the virtual device drivers as they are initialized. The registry responds to call information requests from the programs to provide call information for the registered virtual device drivers. Each call request includes a requested virtual device driver identifier, and the registered information supply element retrieves virtual device driver call information associated with the entry whose virtual device driver identifier corresponds to the requested virtual device driver identifier in the request. Accordingly, the virtual device driver registry ensures that the virtual device drivers in the set of virtual device drivers associated with the registry have identifiers that need only be unique for that registry. In addition, the registry provides for greater flexibility in selection of identifiers and enables use of a much larger set of identifiers than would be available using the Microsoft naming scheme, since the identifiers which are registered with the registry are not limited by the Microsoft global identifier scheme using sixteen bit identifiers.

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Lexington, MA, United States of America

Jonathan M Dreyer