Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Vijayachandran Jayaseelan

Ryan M Burkhardt

Raj Jhanwar

Jason L Cohen

Seetharaman Harikrishnan

Michael Grier

Tom G Yaryan

Michael James Day

Richard Bond

Vijesh Shetty

Brian McNeill

Controlling access to functionality within an installed software product. The invention includes an authorization module that dynamically references authorization information when specific functionality is requested by a requesting entity such as a user or an application program to determine if the requested functionality is authorized to be executed. Further, the invention dynamically provides an opportunity to the requesting entity to purchase unauthorized functionality. In this manner, functionality within the software product may be enabled or disabled at any time (e.g., during installation, post-installation, and re-installation).

Selectively authorizing software functionality after installation of the software

A componentization schema representing files from which an operating system or other software product is built. According to the schema, a component object represents one or more of the files. The component object has a manifest that identifies the component and specifies any dependencies between the component and other objects. Grouping objects according to the dependencies specified in manifests permits building the software product. A feature object defined by at least one component object represents a feature of the software product and a product object defined by at least one feature object represents the software product.

Software componentization for building a software product

A system and method of creating and employing an operating system (OS) image having selected functionality. A user, such as an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of personal computers (PCs) or an information technology professional, selects a set of OS components from a plurality of OS components available in an installation OS image. The selected set of OS components is installed as the OS image on a computer readable medium such as a CD-ROM. The OS image includes a script for interacting with the OS image to perform functions desired by a user, such as booting a destination computer and installing a reference OS image or recovering the destination computer from a failed installation of the reference OS image.

Method and system for creating and employing an operating system having selected functionality

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Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Vijayachandran Jayaseelan