Computer system with file association and application retrieval

• US 20030084096A1
• Filed: 05/16/2002
• Published: 05/01/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Moore, Jason, Starbuck, Bryan
• Granted Patent: US 7,203,737 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

A computer system and method are presented that provide a user with information about a needed application to open or access a particular type of file. In the method, when the user of the computer attempts to access a particular file, the method determines whether the computing device has available an application program that is needed to access a file of the particular file type. If the computing device does not have an application program available that can be used to access the file, a browser program is launched on the computing device. The browser program is utilized to locate a link to at least one application program that can access the selected file. The application program resides on a second computing device in the networked computing environment.

Claims

1. A method for use in a networked computing environment for associating a file having a given file type with an application program, the network computing environment including at least one computing device, the method comprising:

in response to a user selection of a file, determining whether the computing device has available an application program needed to access a file of the file type, and if not;

launching a browser program on the computing device; and

utilizing the browser program, locating a link to at least one application program adapted to access the selected file of the file type, the application program residing on a second computing device in the networked computing environment.

2. A method in a computing environment for requesting information about a needed application program on a first computing device, the needed application program being one which is adapted to access a selected file, the file being of a particular type that can be opened by the needed application program, the method comprising:

storing on the first computing device, a tabular list of application programs residing on the first computing device and corresponding file types which are accessible by said application programs;

searching said tabular list, when a user attempts to access the selected file, to find the associated application programs adapted to access the selected file;

launching a browser to access a second computing device, if the needed application program is not found on the first computing device; and

sending from the first computing device, an indicia of a spoken language and a file extension to a second computing device, wherein said file extension serves to identify the file type of the selected file.

3. A method as recited in claim 2, further comprising:

receiving on the first computing device from the second computing device, one or more references to identifications and locations of at least one needed application program that can open the selected file; and

requesting from said second computing device, information for display on said first computing device to enable the user to select from a display listing, the at least one needed application program.

4. A method in a computing environment for providing, to a client computing device, information about one or more application programs adapted to open a file of interest to the client computing device, the method comprising:

storing, on a server computing device, a set of application programs and the corresponding file types that said application programs are adapted to access;

receiving from the client computing device, a file type indicia corresponding to the file of interest;

determining if there is a corresponding application program available to said server that is adapted to access files corresponding to the received file type, and if so;

sending, to the client computing device, information and a reference to a location corresponding to the determined application adapted to access files of the received file type.

5. A method as recited in claim 4, wherein if there is no corresponding application program on said server computing device, said reference to a location is made to a device other than said server computing device.

6. A method as recited in claim 4, wherein said sent information includes user display items and data elements and wherein said sent information separates user display items from data elements by utilizing XML and XSL to specify said information.

7. The method as recited in claim 6, wherein said reference to a location is an HREF to an XSL file on a server computing device, wherein said XSL file contains information needed to create a user interface with HTML to be displayed on said client computing device.

8. A method in a computing environment for providing a file association web service, comprising:

tracking file type extensions and application programs corresponding to the file type extensions in a data store;

locating and providing links to application programs that are not currently existent in said data store; and

updating said data store with the names and locations of application programs with the located links.

9. A memory on a computing device for storing data for access by an application program being executed on a data processing system, comprising:

a data structure stored in said memory, said data structure including information resident in a data store used by said application program and including;

a plurality of attribute data objects stored in said memory, each of said attribute data objects, comprising;

a file association item;

a file type identification item;

a file extension item;

a file description item; and

an identification object of one or more application programs, each of said identification objects comprising;

an application name; and

an identifier of an application location.