Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Van Christopher Van

Brian J Deen

Joel Mathew Soderberg

Henry L Sanders

Alexander Hopmann

Noah Heller

Ling Tony Chen

Michael John Hillberg

Damon V Danieli

Mark Daniel VanAntwerp

Douglas C Hebenthal

Chao-Chia Liu

Todd G Roshak

Cameron J A Ferroni

Various embodiments of the invention are directed to closely integrating functionality between an internet server and a WebDAV tool. Areas of specific focus in this document include delegation of duties between the internet server and the WebDAV tool, efficient management of a resource's content-type, support for segregation of a namespace into separate virtual roots, and determinations of whether to invoke certain processing extensions to handle requests for a given HTTP verb.

Apparatus and computer-readable media for processing HTTP requests determine scoping mapping between a mapped resource name extension and a content type

Apparatus and computer-readable media for processing HTTP requests

Apparatus and computer-readable media for determining whether an existing map specifies a different content type than the content type that is specified for the specified resource name extension in a web distributed authoring and versioning (WebDAV) request

Method and system for processing HTTP requests creating a new map for an entire namespace that is associated with the request and that maps the name extension to the further content type within namespace

Controlling access to secure data and services by versatile computers outside a secure environment, which communicates with limited dedicated devices such as game consoles, over a secure network such as a virtual private network. The versatile computing devices obtain access over an insecure network, such as the Internet, through a trusted partner Web site that authenticates users of the site and relays requests to the secure environment. The Web site uses a certificate for a predefined level of secure access to the secure environment. A link is established between a user's Web ID authenticated by the Web site and a gamer tag used within the secure environment. Access is limited as a function of the Web ID, gamer tag, and a Web site partner ID. A Web cache stores and provides some secure data, minimizing disruption to the secure environment's primary function to service the dedicated devices.

Web access to secure data

A user who has signed on to an online gaming service can send an invitation to a friend appearing in the user's friends list to join in playing the game the user has loaded or may join the friend in playing the game being played by the friend, regardless of whether the game title played by the friend is the same as that loaded on the user's game console. If the game titles are different, the party needing to load the game title to be played is prompted to do so, and then prompted to reboot the game console. Information written about the new game to be played is automatically written on the hard drive of that party's game console and automatically accessed after the reboot for use in expediting the log-in process of the player who had to reboot.

Online game invitations using friends list

Provided are methods and systems for integrating the access controls of computer resources into a namespace or domain. For a remote user, a computer network or system is a namespace represented by a URL. In order to enforce the access controls of the computer network being accesses, a remote user is impersonated by a server of the computer system such that access requests to the resources of a system are made by the server in the security context of the remote user. By impersonating the remote user, the actual rights of the remote user are being presented to the access controls rather than the rights of the server. In this manner, the access control of the system can be enforced directly on the remote user and the access control is effectively extended to the namespace.

Systems and methods for integrating access control with a namespace

A client-server protocol support list in the context of standard request-response protocols such as the HyperText Transport Protocol (HTTP) is disclosed. In one embodiment, a method includes receiving a request according to a predetermined transport protocol. In response to receiving the request, the method transmits a list of supported client-server protocols in order of server preference, in accordance with the predetermined transport protocol. In one embodiment, the request is an OPTIONS request under HTTP. In one embodiment, the list is not a complete list of the protocols supported by the server.

Client-server protocol support list for standard request-response protocols

Methods and systems for processing HTTP requests

The present invention provides for directing requests to specific processing using an inclusion list. The inclusion list contains a list of methods that an associated process, program, or module is capable of executing. A request contains at least a method and a resource. A server, upon receiving the request, identifies the process module or handler that is associated with the resource by the file extension of the resource. After the process is identified, an inclusion list is examined to determine if the process is capable of performing the identified method. If the method is listed in the inclusion list, then processing is directed to the identified process, which performs the indicated method with regard to the identified resource. If the method is not listed in the inclusion list, then control of the request is not provided to the process. In the case where the inclusion list is empty, processing is directed to the process associated with the extension of the resource regardless of the method specified in the request.

System and method for directing requests to specific processing

Methods and systems are described for minimizing increases in memory usage when updating an inheritance tree that follows &ldquo;first one wins&rdquo; inheritance semantics for property or &ldquo;metadata&rdquo; information. The inheritance tree is updated by writing new files to the inheritance tree, each new file potentially having property information or &ldquo;metadata&rdquo; associated therewith. The method examines the ancestral line of each new file that is written to the inheritance tree (and any property value in a global location if necessary) to determine whether existing property values that would be applied to the new file match the property value of the new file. If the existing property value does not match the property value of the new file, the property information is set in the ancestral line of the new file at the level of the new file itself. If the existing property value does match the property value of the new file, then the new file is written to the inheritance tree without writing the property information. Thus, as new files are written to the inheritance tree, the method reduces the amount of property information that needs to be written to the inheritance tree.

Methods and systems for updating an inheritance tree with minimal increase in memory usage

A method is described of converting a file system path corresponding to a resource to a uniform resource locator (URL) corresponding to the resource. After receiving the file system path, the following information is obtained related to the resource located in the inputted file system path: the protocol prefix, domain name, the port number if different than default, and the URL fixed subdirectory structure if any. This information may be obtained, for example, by reference to a URL provided to a conversion module. The URL is then manufactured by first assigning the protocol prefix as the left-most characters of the URL. Then, the domain name, a colon &ldquo;:&rdquo; and port number if different than default, any subdirectory structure, and a latter portion of the file system path are added to the protocol prefix. Finally, any back slashes &ldquo;&bsol;&rdquo; are converted to forward slashes &ldquo;/&rdquo; to complete the conversion to the URL.

System and method for converting a file system path into a uniform resource locator

Provided is a method for locking computer resources and for accessing locked computer resources. Resources being used by remote users can be locked such that other remote users and local users have restricted access to those resources. The remote user provides the resource to be locked, the type of lock to place on the resource and the duration of the lock. If the resource is available and the user has the proper credentials and the proper access permissions, the resource is locked and a lock token is provided to the remote user. A resource handle is also provided to the remote user. Once a resource has been locked, the lock token must be provided and verified before access to the resource is granted. Because the locks can be discovered, a security token of the owner of the lock is associated with the lock token. The security token of the remote user must also match the security token associated with the stored lock token before access to the resource is granted. The locks can either expire or be refreshed. If a lock expires, it is removed from memory and the resource handle is released. Also, particular user agents are given a fixed lock token in order to access system resources. These particular agents view the resource as locked, but the non-unique fixed lock token indicates to the system that the resource is not in fact locked. Other particular agents are given an extended timeout period to account for real time latencies of the computer system.

Systems and methods for using locks with computer resources

Access source control of resources within standard request-response protocols such as HTTP is disclosed. In one embodiment, the server receives a request, and determines whether a TRANSLATE header of the request specifies TRUE or FALSE. If the former, the server generates and returns the response to the resource. If the latter, the server determines whether an access source bit controlling access to the source of the resource is turned on. If it is, then the source can be accessed by the client; that is, in one embodiment, the source is returned. Otherwise, in one embodiment, an error message is returned.

Access source control of resources within standard request-response protocols

A method is described for moving a collection of resources from a source virtual namespace to a destination virtual namespace. For example, the method could copy or move the files within a URI directory &ldquo;http://server/dir1/&rdquo; to a new URI directory &ldquo;http://server/newdir1&rdquo; using a single copy or move request. In response to an appropriate request, the computer system the computer system performs the following acts for the parent directory and then for those subdirectories at any level underneath the parent directory. For each directory, the computer system determines the physical namespace (e.g., file system path) that corresponds to the virtual namespace of that directory. This is performed for both the directory in the source virtual namespace and the corresponding directory in the destination virtual namespace. Next, the files are copied from the directory of the source physical namespace to the directory of the destination physical directory. In a move operation, the files within that source directory are deleted at some point after being copied. The method allows a user to treat the Internet as a readable and writable medium organized in a tree-like directory structure and allows copying or moving in a single request across the directory structure.

Growing community of inventors

Snoqualmie, WA, United States of America

Van Christopher Van