The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 23, 2002
Filed:
Mar. 30, 1999
Robert M. Fries, Redmond, WA (US);
Brian Wahlert, Homewood, IL (US);
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
A system for upgrading software has multiple clients coupled to an upgrade server. The clients store an old version of software. The upgrade server stores both the old version of software and a new version of software. The upgrade server creates an upgrade file from the old and new versions of the software such that the upgrade file is smaller than the new version. The upgrade server compares old character strings from the old version with new character strings from the new version to identify matching sections. The upgrade server derives a two-dimensional table containing multiple entries, whereby each entry represents a length of a longest common substring beginning at a first position in the old character string and at a second position in the new character string. The upgrade server then ascertains the longest common substring from the table. The upgrade server inserts headers into the upgrade file to distinguish between matching and non-matching sections. For matching sections, only the header is included and the section is omitted. The clients receive the upgrade file and begin processing the file to reconstruct the new version of software from the new sections included in the upgrade file and from the matching sections obtained locally from the stored old version of software.