System and method of providing multiple installation actions

• US 20040169686A1
• Filed: 03/03/2004
• Published: 09/02/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 05/05/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Zimniewicz, Jeff A., Marino, Phillip J., Johnson, Crista
• Granted Patent: US 7,398,480 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/841
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 715/966 Computer process, e.g. operation of computer

Abstract

A system and method are presented for a suite integration toolkit (SIT) allowing for the provision and display of a rich set of installation actions. The user interface (UI) provides a list box interface having pull down menus for the display and selection of component defined installation actions. Preferably the SIT is used to install a suite of applications having multiple components and sub-components. These components and sub-components are displayed with the install action selected and disk space required displayed. The UI also provides a summation of the required disk space of only those components that will actually be installed, taking into consideration and excluding from the summation required components that are already installed. An interface method is implemented by each of the components to expose a method to allow the SIT to query the component for its available installation actions and results.

Claims

1. A method in a computer system for displaying on a display device a component install action selection screen for an installation application, the installation application adapted to perform install actions for a plurality of constituent components of an application program suite, comprising the steps of:

displaying a first list of the plurality of constituent components;

obtaining a second list of available install actions for each of the plurality of constituent components; and

displaying one of the available install actions in proximity to each of the plurality of constituent components of the first list.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of displaying a first list of the plurality of constituent components comprises the step of displaying the first list in a tree structure.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said step of displaying the first list in a tree structure comprises the steps of:

displaying a first level of components; and

displaying a tree expansion symbol in proximity to components at the first level having at least one sub-component at a second level.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising the steps of:

receiving an indication that a user has selected the tree expansion symbol for one of the components a the first level having at least one sub-component at a second level;

displaying the at least one second level sub-component for the one component; and

displaying a tree contraction symbol in proximity to the one component.

5. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing steps comprising:

obtaining a first list of a plurality of constituent components of a suite to be installed;

displaying the first list of the plurality of constituent components;

obtaining a second list of available install actions for each of the plurality of constituent components; and

displaying one of the available install actions in proximity to each of the plurality of constituent components of the first list.