Device driver verification

• US 10,467,082 B2
• Filed: 12/09/2016
• Issued: 11/05/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 12/09/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Mielke, Markus W., Lichtenberg, Jakob F., Levin, Vladimir A., De Weduwe, Remy L., Kwon, Hyuk Joon, Deisinger, Nathan L., Pabreja, Vikas, Li, Juncao
• Primary Examiner(s): Truong, Loan L. T.
• Application Number:
  US15/374,830
• Publication Number:
  US 20180165141A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,061 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0706 the processing taking place on a specific hardware platform or in a specific software environment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/076 by exceeding a count or rate limit, e.g. word- or bit count limit
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/079 Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/221 to test buses, lines or interfaces, e.g. stuck-at or open line faults

Abstract

Systems and methods are described for verifying functionality of a computing device. A set of rules are sent to a computing device identifying a device driver. Data is received from the one device that is indicative of collected driver data of the computing device. The data is collected by a driver verifier function executing on the computing device. The driver verifier function is configured to capture information associated with the identified device driver identified by the set of rules. The received data is parsed to categorize the data with previously collected driver data of other computing devices. The data is categorized based on attributes of the collected driver data. The categorized data is provided for analysis of the driver health on the computing device.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for analyzing health of drivers installed on a plurality of computing devices, the method comprising:

sending, by a remote server to a plurality of computing devices operating in a production environment, a set of rules associated with a device driver installed on the computing devices, the set of rules usable to target identified device drivers and user devices;

receiving, by the remote server from the computing devices, data indicative of driver data of the computing devices, wherein the driver data is collected by a driver verifier function executing on the computing devices, the driver verifier function configured to capture information associated with the device driver in accordance with the set of rules;

parsing, by the remote server, the driver data to categorize the driver data with previously collected driver data of other computing devices, the driver data categorized based at least in part on attributes of the driver data indicative of user devices that have encountered specified driver errors;

analyzing, by the remote server, the categorized driver data to generate rankings of the specified driver errors; and

rendering a driver health interface indicative of the analyzed driver data.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising calculating a predicted probability of a device driver failure based at least in part on the received data.

3. The method according to claim 2, further comprising initiating a maintenance action based on the predicted probability.

4. The method according to claim 1, further comprising constructing the set of rules to configure the driver verifier function.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the set of rules define a specified group of the plurality of computing devices.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein the specified group is defined based on a specified device and driver.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the categorized data is searchable using queries for unique event identifiers.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein the unique event identifiers are indicative of categories for user devices that have encountered specified driver errors, characteristics of the error, drivers that are violating checks, what checks have been violated, and frequency of the violations.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein the collected driver data is collected on a periodic or scheduled basis.

10. A system configured to facilitate operation of a plurality of computing devices operating in a production environment, the system comprising:

at least one memory having stored therein computer instructions that, upon execution by one or more processors of the system, at least cause the system to;

send, to one of the computing devices, a set of rules associated with a device driver, the set of rules usable to target identified device drivers and user devices;

receive, from the computing device, data indicative of driver data of the computing device, wherein the driver data is collected by a driver verifier function executing on the computing device, the driver verifier function configured to capture information associated with the device driver based on the set of rules;

categorize the received data with previously collected driver data of other computing devices, the data categorized based at least in part on attributes of the driver data indicative of user devices that have encountered specified driver errors;

analyze the categorized data to generate rankings of the specified driver errors; and

rendering a driver health interface indicative of the analyzed driver data.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the received data is categorized based at least in part on common attributes of drivers of the plurality of computing devices.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the previously collected driver data comprises crowdsourced data.

13. The system of claim 10, further comprising computer instructions that, upon execution by one or more processors of the system, at least cause the system to implement an application programming interface (API) configured to:

receive first electronic messages that encode identifiers indicative of a request for the received data; and

in response to receiving one of the first electronic messages, send second electronic messages indicative of information pertaining to the request.

14. The system of claim 10, further comprising computer instructions that, upon execution by one or more processors of the system, at least cause the system to implement a user interface configured to construct the set of rules to configure the driver verifier function.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein the set of rules define a specified group of the plurality of computing devices.

16. The system of claim 10, further comprising computer instructions that, upon execution by one or more processors of the system, at least cause the system to initiate an action associated with an identified condition of a driver of the one computing device.

17. The system of claim 16, further comprising computer instructions that, upon execution by one or more processors of the system, at least cause the system to send a recommended user action based on the identified condition.

18. The system of claim 10, further comprising computer instructions that, upon execution by one or more processors of the system, at least cause the system to indicate a likely cause for an identified condition of a driver.

19. The system of claim 10, further comprising computer instructions that, upon execution by one or more processors of the system, at least cause the system to update the set of rules based on the collected driver data.

20. A server configured to facilitating operation of a plurality of computing devices, the server comprising a processor and memory storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, configure the server to:

receive, from a computing device operating in a production environment, data indicative of driver data associated with a device driver of the computing device, wherein the data is collected by a driver verifier function executing on the computing device, the driver verifier function configured to capture information associated with the device driver based on a set of rules usable to target identified device drivers and user devices;

categorize the driver data with previously collected driver data of other computing devices, the driver data categorized based at least in part on attributes of the driver data, the driver data indicative of user devices that have encountered specified driver errors; and

analyze the categorized data to generate rankings of the specified driver errors; and

rendering a driver health interface indicative of the analyzed driver data.