EUGENE C LIN, MD
Radiology at 9 Ave, Seattle, WA

2006020, Sep 21, 2006

Mar 15, 2005

11/080856

Eric Anderson - Issaquah WA, US
George Roussos - Seattle WA, US
Jon Morris - Mukilteo WA, US
Eugene Lin - Seattle WA, US

Microsoft Corporation - Redmond WA

G06F 3/12

358001130, 358001150

The subject invention relates to enabling device drivers that support additional functionality that can be enabled to an operating system. A hardware manufacture can claim support for additional functionality in their device drivers, and such functionality can be verified and tagged during driver signing. When a device driver passes a corresponding test, the driver is digitally signed and the signature can include attributes indicating support for that functionality (e.g., features and applications). The systems and methods employ a querying mechanism that can search a device driver package for attributes and expose such attributes. The search can expose both trusted attributes and untrusted device driver properties. Exposed trusted attributes can be selectively enabled to provide corresponding features and/or applications. This can facilitate enabling aspects of hardware when corresponding drivers support such functionality and mitigate enabling an unsupported feature and/or an application. Untrusted properties can be manually enabled, for example, for testing purposes.

2004000, Jan 1, 2004

Jun 27, 2002

10/184354

Eugene Lin - Seattle WA, US
Shawn Maloney - Bellevue WA, US

G06F013/10, G06F009/445

709/321000

A model for sharing software such as a device driver. After receiving a notification that a consumer computer system is in need of software that has certain criteria, a referral list is consulted to determine an available software item that best meets this need. The consumer computer system is then told of a provider computer system that is capable of providing that software. The consumer computer system may then download that software directly from the provider computer system. In one example, the software is a driver thus allowing a consumer computer system to automatically download an appropriate driver upon connection of an associated hardware device.

2006025, Nov 9, 2006

Apr 22, 2005

11/112294

Eugene Lin - Seattle WA, US
Jason Cobb - Sammamish WA, US
James Cavalaris - Kirkland WA, US

Microsoft Corporation - Redmond WA

G06F 3/00

710008000

A system to manage software component replacement is presented. The system comprises a component that identifies a unique identifier associated with a software component. The system also includes an upgrade component that applies an upgrade policy as a function of a comparison of the unique identifier with an identifier associated with software to replace. Methods for using the presented system are also provided.

2008018, Aug 7, 2008

Feb 2, 2007

11/670745

Eugene S. Lin - Seattle WA, US
Jason T. Cobb - Sammamish WA, US
James G. Cavalaris - Kirkland WA, US

Microsoft Corporation - Redmond WA

G06F 13/00

719321

Some device drivers support the “least common denominator” features of a device, such as a generic VGA driver which does not provide access to higher resolution or other features supported by a video card. It may be difficult for computer users to know when an enhanced driver is available. A method is provided to notify a user that a device driver on the user's system is generic and that an enhanced device driver is available.

7716382, May 11, 2010

Jan 11, 2005

11/032948

Eugene S. Lin - Seattle WA, US
Jason T Cobb - Sammamish WA, US

Microsoft Corporation - Redmond WA

G06F 3/00, G06F 13/12

710 8, 710 15, 710 62, 710 72, 719321

Systems and methods are disclosed that facilitate refining a list of candidate driver packages for a detected plug-and-play device. A device can be detected and a hardware ID there for can be determined and compared to hardware IDs in a data store to determine a preliminary list of driver packages that match the hardware device ID. The driver packages can be tagged with additional rich targeting criteria that must be satisfied in order for the driver package to be retained in the candidate list. If additional criteria in the driver packages are not satisfied, then the driver package can be excised from the candidate list to refine driver package compatibility with a computer to which the device is connected.

7284157, Oct 16, 2007

Jun 3, 2005

11/145326

Lonny Dean McMichael - Duvall WA, US
George Evangelos Roussos - Seattle WA, US
Eugene Lin - Seattle WA, US
Jason Ty Cobb - Sammamish WA, US
Santosh Sharad Jodh - Sammamish WA, US
Bjorn Levidow - Bellevue WA, US
Mark Derbecker - Seattle WA, US

Microsoft Corporation - Redmond WA

G06F 11/00

714 38, 714 44, 717173, 717178

Systems and methods are provided that prevent faulty drivers from being loaded and/or can prevent faulty drivers from being installed. Thus, instability of a computer system can be mitigated. Additionally, the occurrence of data corruption, system halting and the like can be reduced. A requested driver is compared to a list of faulty drivers from a faulty driver database. If the requested driver is in the list of faulty drivers, the requested driver is deemed faulty or defective, and is prevented from being loaded. Additionally, if the requested driver is in the list of faulty drivers, the requested driver can be prevented from being installed. Otherwise, the requested driver is operable and can be installed and/or loaded.