Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Li-Hsin Huang

Jeffrey Michael Davis

Aaron J Sauve

Tony Edward Schreiner

J Craig Hally

Jonathan Gass

Tom Pipinich

Cornelis K Van Dok

Jeremiah S Epling

Brian E Manthos

Samuel R Fortiner

Cenk Ergan

Roberto Anthony Franco

Justin Rogers

Marc Adam Silbey

Rico Mariani

Jeffrey Alan Davis

Brian D Wentz

Jason Joseph Weber

Christian Fortini

Jingyang Xu

Benjamin C Constable

Paul Cutsinger

Edward J Praitis

Rossen Atanassov

Richard Keith James

Quji Guo

Rafael V Cintron

Sergey Z Malkin

R Scott Briggs

Praveen Kumar Muralidhar Rao

Matthew P Kotsenas

Julian Jiggins

Herman H Ng

Jia Zhu

Anjali S Parikh

Venkatavaradhan Panchapagesan

Stephen A Turton

Bhargavi Hiremagalur

Paul L Cutsinger, Jr

Grant A Watters

Yuanzhe Wang

Nirankush Panchbhai

Peter Salas

Craig J Hally

System(s) and/or method(s) ('tools') are described that present indicia for implicitly and explicitly user-associated web pages of a network browser application. The tools can present these indicia in a single graphic user interface, in response to a user's selection of a single unified access point, or in response to a search of the browser's user-associated web pages.

Searching and browsing URLs and URL history

Adware and viruses are examples of objects that may be embedded in a web page or linked to a web page. When such an object is detected to be associated with a web page loading on a browser, an analysis may be performed to determine a trust level for the object. The object is suppressed based on the trust level. A prompt is displayed to advise a user that the object has been suppressed, and to provide an opportunity to interactively accept or decline activation of an action for the object.

Tiered object-related trust decisions

Various embodiments provide an add-on advisor that is designed to assist users in managing add-ons for a browser and/or other application programs. In at least some embodiments, the add-on advisor can be implemented to detect newly installed add-ons and provide notifications to a user of the detected add-ons. The notifications regarding new add-ons can be configured with options to permit the user to enable or disable the add-ons. Add-ons that are not explicitly enabled by a user can be prevented from operating by the add-on advisor. Further, in at least some embodiments, the add-on advisor can be implemented to monitor performance impact of add-ons and provide notifications to a user when add-ons adversely affect performance. The user can then interact with the add-on advisor to improve performance by selectively enabling and disabling add-ons.

Add-on performance advisor

Techniques for synchronization points for state information are described. In at least some embodiments, synchronization points are employed to propagate state information among different processing threads. A synchronization point, for example, can be employed to propagate state information among different independently-executing threads. Accordingly, in at least some embodiments, synchronization points serve as inter-thread communications among different independently-executing threads.

Synchronization points for state information

Various embodiments are directed to intelligently rendering or pre-rendering content that may likely be brought into an associated viewport during a user's interaction with the content. In at least some embodiments, the process of caching pre-rendered content is separated from a determination of which regions outside of the viewport are to be kept up to date over use and time. Further, at least some embodiments perform rendering activities in multiple passes in an effort to reduce potential delays in the user visible content reaching completion, without interfering with other work that an associated application or system performs during rendering.

Speculative render ahead and caching in multiple passes

A method for browser software with a tabbed interface to suppress, or delay, the display of a dialog box that is initiated by an inactive, or background, tab. An indication may be provided to the user that a dialog box needing user attention may be provided. When that tab becomes active, and the web page on that tab becomes visible, the dialog box is then displayed. This suppression method may be applied to a variety of application programs.

Suppressing dialog boxes

Techniques for surface caching are described in which a cache for surfaces is provided to enable existing surfaces to be reused. Surfaces in the cache can be assigned to one of multiple surface lists used to service requests for surfaces. The multiple lists can include at least a main list and an auxiliary list configured to group existing surfaces according to corresponding surface constraints. When a surface is requested, the multiple lists can be searched to find an existing surface based on constraints including, for example, the type of surface and size requirements for the requested surface. If an existing surface is discovered, the existing surface can be returned to service the request. If a suitable surface is not found in the multiple lists, a new surface is created for the request and the new surface can be added to a corresponding one of the multiple surface lists.

Surface caching

The present invention is generally directed to improving the stability of computing devices by identifying plug-in modules and other programs that cause failures. More specifically, the present invention provides a method that traces program execution from an instruction that ultimately generated a failure to a code library that caused the failure generating instruction to be executed. The method traces execution of the computing device by obtaining the contents of memory at the time of the failure and traversing the stack data structure that stores data items necessary to execute function calls.

Identifying a code library from the subset of base pointers that caused a failure generating instruction to be executed

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Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Li-Hsin Huang