Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Mazhar Naveed Mohammed

Marc Shepard

Jason J Roberts

Edward F Reus

Anders Bertil Vinberg

Michael V Sliger

Thomas Dee McGuire

Avronil Bhattacharjee

Mario C Goertzel

Bharat Shah

Derek Menzies

Derek Cheng

David Cris Hennessey

Justin Kwak

Galen Clyde Hunt

Robert M Fries

Robert Victor Welland

Bassam Tabbara

Ashvinkumar J Sanghvi

Rene Antonio Vega

Aamer Hydrie

Raymond W McCollum

Geoffrey Hugh Outhred

Vij Rajarajan

John M Parchem

David C James

Efstathios Papaefstathiou

Rob M Mensching

Vitaly Voloshin

Bruce Wayne Copeland

Aaron H Averbuch

Michael Joseph Healy

Christopher Scott Gouge

David E Kays

John H Wilson

Manojkumar Haridas Shende

Jonathan C Hardwick

Thottam Sriram

Steven Patterson Burns

Eric Joseph Winner

Rajagopalan Badri Narayanan

Anand Lakshminarayanan

Gary Scot Henderson

Jeffrey A Woolsey

David B Dehghan

Joseph Dadzie

Michael Meulemans

Nirmal Rajesh Soy

Varadarajan Thiruvillamalai

Edwin R Lassettre

Kevin D J Grealish

Zhengkai Kenneth Pan

Steve P Shih

Jianbo Hou

Peter A Williams

Xiang He

Craig C Marl

Vidyasankar Raman

Krishnan Rangarajan

Lie Ma

Ken Showman

Walter Wittel

Sending installation information. A method may be performed, for example, in a network computing environment including one or more servers connected to one or more clients. The method includes signing a package including installation information. A hash of the package is created. A metadata data set is created. The metadata data set includes a description of the package, an identification for the package, applicability rules describing intended recipients of the installation information, the hash of the package, and installation instructions for the package. The metadata data set is sent to a target group of systems in the network computing environment.

Secure content publishing and distribution

Described herein are one or more implementations of a policy-management infrastructure that provides a universal policy-based solution across a spectrum of scenarios in a computing environment. At least one implementation of the policy-management infrastructure defines how policy-based data is structured or layered relative towards the data in other layers. Furthermore, a described implementation provides a mechanism for determining 'overlap' and 'conflicts' in policies.

Policy-management infrastructure

A hierarchical software update distribution system and method for distributing software updates is presented. The update distribution system includes a root update service node and at least one update service node. In an update distribution system, each update service node, except the root update service node, has one parent update service node. Each update service node may function as a parent update service node to child update service nodes.

Update distribution system architecture and method for distributing software

In accordance with certain aspects of the model-based policy application, each of a plurality of policies is associated with appropriate parts of a model of a heterogeneous system. A deployment agent is invoked to apply each of the plurality of policies to components associated with the parts of the model. An identification of a change to one of the plurality of policies is received, and the deployment agent is also invoked to apply the changed policy to selected ones of the components associated with the parts of the model.

Model-based policy application

A system and method for facilitating the selection and implementation of software updates while minimizing the bandwidth and processing resources required to select and implement the software updates. In one embodiment, an update service controls access to software updates, or other types of software, stored on a server.

System and method for managing and communicating software updates

A system and method for managing the installation of files on a computing device are provided. A client computing device obtains installation information identifying a version of a baseline installation component stored on the client computing device. The installation information also includes an installation component delta patch that is merged with the baseline installation component to generate an updated installation component. The updated installation component is utilized to install one or more files on the client computing device. Upon completion of the installation, the updated installation component can be deleted.

System and method for updating installation components using an installation component delta patch in a networked environment

Systems and methods for remote assistance. A user computer is able to generate a ticket that includes temporary credentials for a remote assistance account of the user computer. The ticket is escalated to an expert, who activates the ticket and requests a connection with the user using the encrypted credentials. The user can accept this request if the credentials are validated and provide the expert with a view of the user's desktop. The expert, if necessary, can request control of the user computer and the user can either grant or deny this request. If granted, the user computer can unilaterally terminate the control that was provided to the expert. Because the credentials in the ticket are encrypted, the expert does not know the actual password to the remote assistance account and can only access the user computer interactively.

Remote assistance

A system and method for updating one or more files on a computing device are provided. A client computing device obtains update information including an index identifying particular delta patches with specific versions of installed files. Upon selecting which of the applicable updates will be implemented, an update agent on the client computing device performs an inventory to identify which version a file to be updated is installed on the machine. The update agent selects a corresponding delta patch and transmits the request to an update service.

System and method for updating files utilizing delta compression patching

The present invention is directed to a system and method for managing software updates. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a system and method for facilitating the selection and implementation of software updates while minimizing the bandwidth and processing resources required to select and implement the software updates. In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, a software update service controls access to software updates stored on servers. In accordance with another aspect, the software update service synchronizes with client machines to identify applicable updates.

Managing software updates and a software distribution service

A method and mechanism for interprocess communication between a thread of a client application and a thread of a server application. The mechanism includes a server listening thread and a client listening thread. The client thread sends a request to a server listening thread, and the server listening thread places the request in a message queue associated with the server thread. The request is received at the server thread and dispatched to a remote procedure for processing. Reply data received back from the remote procedure is sent to the client listening thread. The client listening thread notifies the client thread when the reply is received and gives the reply to the client thread.

Method and mechanism for interprocess communication using client and server listening threads

A method and mechanism for efficiently handling connections in a computer system between client sockets and data sockets of a server. The server includes a receive-any thread having a socket mask associated therewith to listen for new connection requests and for activity on data sockets handled thereby. The server further includes receive-direct threads associated with at least some of the data sockets for handling data communication. When a receive-direct connection has no activity for a period of time, the connection is migrated to a receive-any connection. When a receive-any connection becomes active, the connection is migrated to a receive-direct connection if a receive-direct thread is available.

Method and system for migrating connections between receive-any and receive-direct threads

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Sammamish, WA, United States of America

Mazhar Naveed Mohammed