Data processing: software development – installation – and managem – Software upgrading or updating – Network
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-16
2002-12-10
Morse, Gregory (Department: 2122)
Data processing: software development, installation, and managem
Software upgrading or updating
Network
C717S169000, C717S171000, C717S172000, C717S175000, C717S178000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06493871
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates generally to the installation and updating of computer software products, and more particularly to the downloading of update data needed for updating a software product or components thereof.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Most popular software products nowadays constantly go through revisions to fix “bugs” or add new features and functionality. To that end, each revision of a software product or component may require the addition of new files and/or the replacement of existing files with files of newer versions. Once a vendor has isolated a software product problem and created a solution for the problem, it would want to put that fix into an update and make the update widely available to the customers. Software vendors have a business incentive to distribute software updates to customers as quickly and trouble-free as possible.
The Internet provides an important channel for customers to obtain the latest updates for software products. The explosive growth of Internet usage has created a common expectation by customers that software products and updates be provided online for downloading. It is also in the interest of software vendors to promote the use of the Internet to distribute updates, because it reduces their costs and allows customers to obtain the fix for an identified problem as soon as the fix is made available for downloading. The vendor sites on the Internet can be designed to make it very simple to discover and locate update files for an application. The technical aspects of file download have mostly disappeared from the user's view, and are now typically handled by the operating system.
In a conventional approach, a software vendor constructs a software update as a “package” for download. This package is typically a self-extracting executable file with the setup program and each of the product's updated files embedded and compressed to make the package smaller. The size of the package is generally the sum of the compressed sizes of each changed file, plus the size of the extraction code itself. Upon execution, the package extracts each of the contained files to a temporary location, then starts the setup program to install each file to a proper location in the system's directory. Files that are shipped in a compressed form are decompressed as they are installed. Any existing file of the same name in the same location would simply be overwritten by the replacement file.
Even though the Internet makes wide and quick distribution of software updates possible, the limited bandwidth of network transmission has caused problems. The sheer sizes of common software applications have caused the download sizes of updates to become unreasonable large. Usually a multitude of fixes for a variety of problems of a product will be grouped into an update. If a vendor updates a software product on a regular basis, the download size of the update package will continue to grow, because the vendor cannot omit files under the assumption that the user already has those files from earlier updates. Because the update package combines a number of whole files, it may be quite large even when the files are compressed. Sometimes, even on the fastest modem connections, several hours are needed to obtain the update for a single product.
The time-consuming aspect of the conventional downloading process is, of course, undesirable. In some cases, customers pay long-distance or connection time charges during these file downloads. Any reductions in connection time will reduce the direct monetary cost for these customers. The vendors typically also have some distinguishable costs relating to the sizes of downloads they provide, so reducing the sizes may give them direct monetary benefits as well. Reducing the sizes of downloads will increase their available network bandwidth, allowing them to serve more customers with existing network server equipment.
The long time it takes to download a large update also makes the downloading process more vulnerable to various network connection problems. There are a number of reasons why an Internet session might be disconnected prematurely, including telephone line noise, call-waiting signals, and unintentional commands. Some Internet service providers enforce a connection time limit, limiting the amount of time the user can be on-line in a single session. If the user is downloading a large file when the network connection is cut off, they may have to start over. Most common operating systems and file transfer protocols do not allow the file transfer to be resumed, so any interim progress would be lost, and the transfer would have to be restarted. The opportunities for failure are so numerous that many users find it nearly impossible to obtain the update online. If the size of an update package is too large, they may never be able to completely download it.
Another significant drawback of the conventional update downloading approach is that it can be fairly inefficient. Many downloaded files are actually never used for updating the software product. Larger software applications frequently have a wide variety of installation options, and very few customers will actually use all of these options. Some examples include spell checkers, document templates, and assistance features for the visually impaired. Another example of common installation option relates to drivers for printers. Most users will need only one or two printer drivers out of a collection of hundreds. Since the vendor has no way of knowing in advance which options will be needed, it would normally include the fixes for all product options in the update package. At setup time, the setup program will recognize that certain files do not need to be installed, so some of the data that was downloaded will be discarded. Since some software products, such as the spell checker, share files with other products, it is possible that the customer will already have installed one or more of the updated files on the system. Again, some of what was downloaded (the spell-checker, in this case) will be discarded.
More recently, vendors have begun to utilize binary patching techniques to update older versions of files into their new forms. The changes needed to modify an existing file into a new form are detailed in a “patch.” Usually, itemizing the changes needed to alter an existing file will take significantly less space than the entire new file would. Data compression techniques will frequently reduce executable files by a ratio of about 3:1, proportional to the original file size. In comparison, the latest file patching techniques achieve ratios more closely proportional to the size of the changed contents, and patching “compression” ratios between 10:1 and 100:1 are common.
To utilize patching for software updates, the vendor must be aware of which versions of files have already been distributed. Most patching tools will accept multiple “old” file versions as input, and produce a patch that is usable on any of those versions processed. The patch, however, cannot be used to convert a version that is not included in the input for generating the patch. The patch produced for multiple older versions will be larger than a patch prepared for only one of the older versions.
A download package that exploits patching is typically an executable file with the setup program and a patch for each of the product's updated files embedded. The size of the update file to be downloaded is generally the sum of the sizes of each patch file plus the size of the extraction code itself. Upon execution on a customer's computer, the setup program reconstitutes each of the updated files by combining the existing files on the customer's computer with the corresponding patch data. The included setup program then installs each reconstituted file to the proper locations in the system's directory structure. Patches, of course, cannot not be used to update files that have not been previously shipped to the customer or somehow are not found on the customer&apo
Auerbach Alan B.
Aul Gabriel J.
McGuire Thomas D.
Nichols Gregory W.
Sliger Michael V.
Das Chameli C.
Microsoft Corporation
Morse Gregory
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