Method and system for migrating computer state

• US 20030074386A1
• Filed: 10/01/2001
• Published: 04/17/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 10/01/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Negreanu, Calin, Schmidt, Jim
• Granted Patent: US 7,210,131 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4451 User profiles; Roaming

Abstract

A system and method for migrating state data from a source computing platform to a destination platform, such as for migrating state data from one computer to another computer. Pluggable modules collect state on a source platform and transport it to temporary storage as state objects that are independent of any particular destination platform. For example, a state object may contain the information that represents a file on a source machine, while another state object may contain a piece of registry data on that machine. At the source platform, modules provide state data gathering and analysis that collect the data into the state objects. A transport module transports the data to storage accessible to the destination. At the destination, the state objects are applied by pluggable modules to the destination platform. The object data can be adjusted, translated and/or merged with destination state data as appropriate for the destination platform.

Claims

1. A system for migrating state data from a source platform to a destination platform, comprising,

on the source platform:

1) a source application program;

2) a source state migration engine invoked by the application program;

3) a gather module called to gather source state data from the source platform; and

4) a transport module called to write the source state data to a temporary storage; and

on the destination platform;

1) a destination application program;

2) a destination state migration engine invoked by the application program;

3) a transport module called to read the source state data from the storage; and

4) an operation module called to apply the source state data to at least one storage location accessible to the destination platform.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein at the source platform, the gather module and the transport module are called by the state migration engine.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the gather module is called by the state migration engine in response to a call from the application program.

4. The system of claim 2 wherein the transport module is selected and called by the state migration engine in response to at least one call from the application program.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein at the destination platform, the transport module and the operation module are called by the state migration engine.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the state migration engine includes a set of at least one interface via which the gather module and the transport module exchange information with the state migration engine module.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein at the source platform, the gather module comprises a source state data gather module.

8. The system of claim 7 further comprising, at the source platform, a source analyze module that analyzes state data gathered by the source state data gather module.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein at the source platform, the gather module collects information from a registry.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein at the source platform, the gather module collects at least one file.

11. The system of claim 1 wherein the state data is gathered into a state object set comprising at least one state object.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein the gather module collects information from registry information and file information, and wherein the state object set includes at least one registry state object for maintaining the registry information and least one file state object for maintaining the file information.

13. The system of claim 11 wherein the state object set includes at least one engine state object.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the state object set includes another type of state object, and further comprising, at the source platform, an extensible type module that is called by the state migration engine to abstract information into the other type of state object.

15. The system of claim 14 further comprising, at the destination platform, an extensible type module that is called by the state migration engine to recover the information abstracted at the source platform.

16. The system of claim 1 wherein at the source platform, the gather module comprises a virtual computer gather module that gathers state data into a virtual computer format that is capable of being edited.

17. The system of claim 16 further comprising, at the destination platform, a source state data gather module that gathers state data from the virtual computer format.

18. The system of claim 17 further comprising, at the destination platform, an analyze module that analyzes state data gathered by the source state data gather module of the destination platform.

19. The system of claim 1 further comprising, at the destination platform, a destination state data gather module that gathers destination state data corresponding to the destination platform.

20. The system of claim 19 further comprising, at the destination platform, an analyze module that analyzes the destination state data gathered by the destination state data gather module.

21. The system of claim 19 further comprising, at the destination platform, a combine state module that merges the source state data and the destination state data.

22. The system of claim 1 wherein the operation module changes at least some of the source state data when called to apply the source state data.

23. A computer-implemented method, comprising,

gathering at least one set of state data from a source platform;

abstracting the state data into a format that is independent of the source platform and independent of any destination platform;

transporting the state data into a storage accessible by a destination platform;

recovering the state data from the storage at the destination platform; and

applying at least some of the state data at the destination platform such that the destination platform has available thereto at least some of the state data from the source platform in a format that is suitable for the destination platform.

24. The method of claim 23 wherein abstracting the state data comprises writing the state data into a state object.

25. The method of claim 23 further comprising, analyzing at least some of the data at the source platform to handle a dependency between one set of state data and another set of state data.

26. The method of claim 23 further comprising, selecting a transport from among a plurality of transports capable of transporting the state data into the storage.

27. The method of claim 23 further comprising, gathering destination state data at the destination, and merging at least some of the destination state data with the state data recovered from the storage.

28. The method of claim 23 further comprising, translating at least some of the state data recovered from the storage to correspond to the destination platform.

29. The method of claim 23 wherein at least some of the state data contains a file, and wherein applying at least some of the state data at the destination platform includes creating a file corresponding thereto accessible to the destination platform.

30. The method of claim 23 wherein at least some of the state data contains a setting, and wherein applying at least some of the state data at the destination platform includes recreating the setting at a location accessible to the destination platform.

31. The method of claim 30 wherein recreating the setting comprises writing information to a registry.

32. The method of claim 23 further comprising communicating with an extensible type module to access at least some of the state data.

33. A computer-readable medium having stored thereon a data structure that maintains state data, comprising:

an identifier field that includes information identifying a type of state object relative to at least one other type of state object;

an object name field arranged to include information that distinguishes the state object from other state objects;

an object content field that includes information corresponding to a logically distinct piece of state data; and

wherein the information in the fields is independent of any particular destination platform.

34. The data structure of claim 33 wherein the information in the fields is written at a source platform.

35. The data structure of claim 33 wherein the identifier field includes information indicating that the state object represents a file, wherein the object content field comprises data of the file, wherein the object name field includes information corresponding to a file name, and further comprising a details field that includes information corresponding to attributes of the file.

36. The data structure of claim 33 wherein the identifier field includes information indicating that the state object represents registry data, wherein the object content field comprises the registry data, and wherein the object name field includes information corresponding to a registry key.

37. The data structure of claim 33 further comprising characteristics associated with the state object.

38. The data structure of claim 37 wherein the characteristics include at least one attribute.

39. The data structure of claim 37 wherein the characteristics include at least one property.

40. The data structure of claim 37 wherein the characteristics include at least one operation.

41. A system for collecting state data from a source platform for use in configuring a destination platform, comprising:

a state migration engine;

a gather module that gathers source state data from the source platform in response to a call from the state migration engine; and

a transport module that writes the source state data gathered by the gather module to a storage, the transport module operating in response to a call from the state migration engine.

42. The system of claim 41 wherein the gather module is called by the state migration engine in response to a call from an application program.

43. The system of claim 41 wherein the transport module is a selectable component, and wherein the transport module selected and called by the state migration engine in response to at least one call from an application program.

44. The system of claim 41 wherein the gather module includes a source state data gather module.

45. The system of claim 44 further comprising a source analyze module that analyzes state data gathered by the source state data gather module.

46. The system of claim 41 wherein the gather module collects information from a registry.

47. The system of claim 41 wherein the gather module collects at least one file.

48. The system of claim 41 wherein the data is gathered into a state object set comprising at least one state object.

49. The system of claim 48 wherein the state object set includes at least one registry state object that maintains registry information and at least one file state object that maintains file information.

50. The system of claim 48 wherein the state object set includes at least one engine state object.

51. The system of claim 48 wherein the state object set includes another type of state object, and further comprising an extensible type module that is called by the state migration engine to abstract information into the other type of state object.

52. The system of claim 41 further comprising at least one mechanism configured to read the state data from the storage and apply the state data to the destination platform.

53. A system for configuring a destination platform with state data collected from a source platform, comprising:

a state migration engine;

a transport module that reads source state data from a storage in response to a call from the state migration engine; and

an operation module that applies the source state data to at least one storage location accessible to the destination platform, the transport module operating in response to a call from the state migration engine.

54. The system of claim 53 wherein the source state data comprises virtual computer data gathered into a virtual computer format that is capable of being edited, and further comprising, a state data gather module that gathers state data from the virtual computer format.

55. The system of claim 54 further comprising, an analyze module that analyzes the state data gathered by the state data gather module.

56. The system of claim 53 further comprising, a destination state data gather module that gathers destination state data corresponding to the destination platform.

57. The system of claim 56 further comprising, an analyze module that analyzes the destination state data gathered by the destination state data gather module.

58. The system of claim 56 further comprising, a combine state module that merges the source state data and the destination state data.

59. The system of claim 53 wherein the operation module changes at least some of the source state data when called to apply the source state data.

60. The system of claim 53 further comprising at least one mechanism configured to gather the source state data from the source platform and store the source state data in the storage.

61. A computer program product, comprising,

a computer-readable storage medium having executable code thereon comprising:

a first computer instruction for reading at least one set of state data from a source platform;

a second computer instruction for abstracting the state data into a predetermined format to obtain abstracted state data that is independent of the source platform and independent of any destination platform; and

a third computer instruction for writing the abstracted state data to a storage medium.

62. A computer program product, comprising,

a computer-readable storage medium having executable code thereon comprising:

a first computer instruction for reading abstracted state data representative of a state of a first platform and wherein a format of said abstracted state data is platform independent; and

a second computer instruction for applying at least some of the abstracted state data at a second platform such that the second platform has available thereto at least some of the state data from the first platform in a format that is suitable for the second platform.