Virtual software machine which preprocesses application program to

Abstract

The present invention relates to a virtual software machine for providing a virtual execution environment in a target computer for an application software program having one or more execution dependencies that are incompatible with a software execution environment on the target computer. The machine comprises a plurality of independent processes, and a virtual control mechanism having a virtual management interface (VMI) for generating requests for execution to the plurality of independent processes and receiving results of such processing. The requests for execution and the results are communicated via a message exchange mechanism. The machine also includes a pre-processor for generating a pre-processed application program in which the execution dependencies are masked. A compiler/linker receives the pre-processed application program and the virtual control mechanism and generates executable code for the operating system of the target computer. A run-time module of the machine is run by the operating system of the target computer for executing the application software program in the target computer despite the execution dependency that is incompatible with the target computer system software execution environment.