Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Lonny Dean McMichael

Santosh Sharad Jodh

Jason T Cobb

Eugene Seichi Lin

George Evangelos Roussos

Brandon Allsop

Mark Derbecker

Bjorn Benjamin Levidow

James Stephens, Ii

Scott Stephens

Kenneth D Ray

Norbert Paul Kusters

James Morris Alkove

Martin Taillefer

Mark Joseph Zbikowski

Patrik Schnell

Nathan T Lewis

James George Cavalaris

Andrew John Thornton

Peter W Wieland

Adrian J Oney

Jamie Hunter

Wesley Allan Witt

Vito J Sabella

John E Paff

Naveen K Kachroo

Vadim Bluvshteyn

John F Wiederhirn

Vadim Bluvshtevn

Adrien Oney

Boo Boon Khoo

An anti-cheating system may comprise a combination of a modified environment, such as a modified operating system, in conjunction with a trusted external entity to verify that the modified environment is running on a particular device. The modified environment may be may be modified in a particular manner to create a restricted environment as compared with an original environment which is replaced by the modified environment. The modifications to the modified environment may comprise alternations to the original environment to, for example, detect and/or prevent changes to the hardware and/or software intended to allow cheating or undesirable user behavior.

Trusted entity based anti-cheating mechanism

Mechanisms are disclosed for updating a virtual machine monitor ('VMM'). Facilities of a guest operating system running in a guest virtual machine managed by the VMM are leveraged to facilitate receiving an update package. The update package may contain updates for guest operating systems extensions in addition to a VMM update. An updater process, running in a guest operating system, extracts the VMM update and transfers it down to the VMM. Upon successful transfer, the updater process applies any necessary updates to guest operating systems extensions and then signals the VMM to commit the transferred VMM update.

Updating a virtual machine monitor from a guest partition

Simultaneous tamper-proofing and anti-piracy protection of software is provided by splitting applications into two parts: an application, and an application launcher. The application is subject to the tamper-proofing protections deployed by a networked service, while the application launcher is subject to anti-piracy protections. To ensure that the application benefits from the anti-piracy protection of the application launcher, the application and application launcher share a trusted challenge-response relationship. The application includes a challenger library for issuing challenges to the application launcher, and the application launcher includes a responder library for responding to such challenges.

Simultaneous tamper-proofing and anti-piracy protection of software

Communication of information via an in-band channel using a trusted configuration space is provided. The introduction of using a trusted configuration space associated with a computer bus system, such as PCI Express&#xae; (PCIe&#x2122;), for example, enables the design of trusted computing platforms capable of providing compliant devices with assurance that their trusted configuration registers can only be accessed by software running in the trusted software environment. Establishing device trust in the software that initiates trusted configuration requests makes it possible to secure and control access to certain secret, sensitive, or personally-identifiable information these devices may contain (e.g., a uniquely-identifying public key, as described above or certificate which the device provides for revocation purposes).

Communication of information via an in-band channel using a trusted configuration space

Systems and methods are provided that prevent faulty drivers from being loaded and/or can prevent faulty drivers from being installed. Thus, instability of a computer system can be mitigated. Additionally, the occurrence of data corruption, system halting and the like can be reduced. A requested driver is compared to a list of faulty drivers from a faulty driver database. If the requested driver is in the list of faulty drivers, the requested driver is deemed faulty or defective, and is prevented from being loaded. Additionally, if the requested driver is in the list of faulty drivers, the requested driver can be prevented from being installed. Otherwise, the requested driver is operable and can be installed and/or loaded.

Faulty driver protection comparing list of driver faults

An automated system for improving the testing of computer devices designed for coupling with docking devices. A plurality of networked computing devices that are individually connected to a compatible docking device through a slave switch. Each slave switch independently connects or disconnects individual computing devices from an attached docking device based on commands obtained from a server. By controlling the electrical connection between the individual computing devices and attached docking devices, the slave switch can simulate the action of docking or undocking one or more selected computers without human intervention. As a result, the present invention provides a system and method that automates the action of docking or undocking a computer. For example, the present invention is suited for use in computer device testing systems wherein a shut down command is sent to a selected computer, after which the selected computer is disconnected from an attached docking device.

System and method for testing computing devices

A method and system for avoiding the overwriting of drivers by subsequent versions or other commonly named drivers includes generating a unique identity for every eligible driver package. Driver files from the driver package, or the entire driver package itself, are then installed in a subdirectory location in a common storage based on the unique identity. The driver files may be loaded to a memory from the subdirectory location. Thus, multiple driver packages and driver files having the same name may be installed and loaded side-by-side.

Side-by-side drivers

A method and system that protects selected system and other files, by preventing changes to those files. In an asynchronous alternative, the change is prevented by copying back the original file when a protected file is changed, as known via an asynchronous notification. In an alternative synchronous embodiment, the change to the file is prevented from occurring. In the asynchronous notification alternative, a directory change notification notifies a file protection service whenever a file that has possibly changed is closed, providing the file identity as part of the notification. The file protection service determines from the file identify whether the file has been deemed protected. If protected, the file protection service prevents any actual change by verifying whether the protected file changed, such as by analyzing the file's contents against known valid contents. If not valid, the file protection service restores a saved copy that is itself verified.

File protection service for a computer system

Driver protection

A partition manager enables the dynamic creation, reconfiguration, and deletion of logical volumes as non-removable storage devices are connected, reconfigured, or disconnected in a computer system by assigning partitions on a connected device to volume managers which create the logical volumes, and by removing the assignment when the device is disconnected or reconfigured. The partition manager receives notification from the operating system of the arrival of new volume managers in a system. When new partitions are created on a non-removable storage device in the system by a device driver, the partition manager intercepts the partitions before they can be registered with the operating system. The partition manager queries each volume manager, in order of their arrival in the system, as to whether the volume manager handles a particular new partition and assigns control of the partition to the appropriate volume manager. The partition manager associates the partition with the appropriate volume manager in an in-memory partition manager database. The partition manager also removes a partition from the control of the associated volume manager and disassociates the partition from the volume manager when the partition is inaccessible.

Dynamic disk partition management

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Lonny Dean McMichael