ENABLING SOFTWARE DESIGNED FOR ONE OPERATING SYSTEM TO OPERATE ON ANOTHER OPERATING SYSTEM

• US 20020066085A1
• Filed: 10/08/1998
• Published: 05/30/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 10/08/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Micron Technology, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: NOWLIN, DAN H. Jr., SILVESTER, KELAN C.
• Granted Patent: US 6,484,309 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/137
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/20 Software design
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/76 Adapting program code to run in a different environment; Porting

Abstract

A system converts an application designed to run on one operating system so that it can run on a second operating system without recompiling. An application designed to run on Windows® 95, 98 or NT, for example, may be converted so that it will operate without recompiling on a Windows® CE operating system machine.

Claims

1. A method for converting software to run on different operating systems comprising:

loading the software on a first computer system having a first non-Windows®

CE operating system;

translating the software to run on a second computer system having a Windows®

CE operating system without recompiling the software'"'"'s source code; and

transferring said software to the second computer system running a Windows®

CE operating system.

2. The method of claim 1 further including creating a first image of the software and a virtual copy of that image at different memory addresses.

3. The method of claim 1 further including creating a translation layer that makes calls for one operating system compatible with a second operating system.

4. The method of claim 1 further including defining a virtual device drive on the first operating system, recording registry entries which are used when a user attempts to install an application to the virtual device drive, and transferring said registry entries to the second operating system.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein translating includes parsing executable and dynamic link libraries and using separate filters to translate each of these different file types.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein translating includes modifying the header of a file using an executable filter so that the second operating system recognizes the file as a valid file for the second operating system.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein translating includes changing the executable startup code to simulate the standard startup code of the second operating system.

8. The method of claim 5 including modifying the header of a dynamic link library file so that the second operating system recognizes the file as a valid file for the second operating system.

9. The method of claim 8 further including changing the executable startup code of the dynamic link library to simulate the standard startup code for the second operating system.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein translating includes using a conversion layer which contains the surrogate application program interfaces necessary to run a non-Windows®

CE operating system.

11. An article comprising a medium for storing instructions that cause a computer to:

load the software on a first computer system having a non-Windows®

CE operating system;

translate the software to run on a second computer system having Windows®

CE operating system, without recompiling; and

transfer said software to the second computer system using said second operating system.

12. The article of claim 11 including instructions that cause a computer to create a first image of the system and a virtual copy of that image at different memory addresses.

13. The article of claim 11 further including instructions that cause a computer to create a translation layer that makes calls for one operating system compatible with a second operating system.

14. The article of claim 11 including instructions that cause a computer to parse executable and dynamic link libraries and use '"'"'separate filters to translate each of these different file types.

15. The article of claim 11 including instructions that cause a computer to convert a non-Windows®

CE operating system into a second operating system which is a Windows®

CE operating system.

16. The article of claim 11 including instructions that cause a computer to use a surrogate translation layer which contains the application program interfaces necessary to run a non-Windows®

CE operating system.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein relocating includes using paging to relocate the image of the software to a second address.

19. The method of claim 17 wherein creating a translation layer includes providing surrogate KERNEL32.DLL, USER32.DLL and GDI32.DLL files.

20. The method of claim 17 further including parsing the executables and the dynamic link libraries in said software.

21. The method of claim 17 further including enabling said translation layer to convert between ASCII and unicode strings.

22. The method of claim 17 further including using a virtual program installation of the software on the non-Windows®

CE system and recording registry entries created by the installation.

23. The method of claim 17 further including using a file filter to convert the executables to a format suitable for the Windows®

CE operating system.

25. The system of claim 24 including a serial cable and a docking bay coupled to said cable, said docking bay adapted to receive a second computer system.

26. The system of claim 24 including a wireless connection to receive a second computer system.

28. The method of claim 27 further including identifying application files that are dynamic link libraries and files that are executables, and using said file filter to translate said files.

29. The method of claim 28 including reforming the file headers of said executable files.

30. The method of claim 29 including changing the start up code of said executable files.

17. A method for converting software designed to run on a non-Windows®

CE system to run on a Windows®

CE system comprising;

coupling said non-Windows®

CE system and said Windows®

CE system;

creating a translation layer on a first computer system, said translation layer communicating with said non-Windows®

CE system using a non-Windows®

CE system calling convention and communicating with said Windows®

CE system using a Windows®

CE system calling convention; and

relocating the virtual address space of the software so that the image of the software appears at two addresses.

24. A computer system comprising:

a processor; and

a memory coupled to said processor, said memory storing software that translates software for non-Windows®

CE system to run on a Windows®

CE system without recompiling source code.

27. A method of converting an application that runs on one operating system to run on another operating system comprising:

creating a translation layer adapted to work with both operating systems; and

using a file filter to change application files for one operating system to operate on another operating system.