System and method for accessing information made available by a kernel mode driver

• US 20040210908A1
• Filed: 05/13/2004
• Published: 10/21/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 07/26/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Warwick, Alan M., Naik, Dilip C.
• Granted Patent: US 7,055,048 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/310
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/28 Supervision thereof, e.g. detecting power-supply failure by out of limits supervision
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3203 Power management, i.e. event-based initiation of a power-saving mode

Abstract

An invention is disclosed that provides a mechanism for exposing to user mode applications the features and information enabled by the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (“ACPI”) specification. The present invention provides a generic mapping driver that executes in kernel mode, and that makes calls to the ACPI driver accessible by user mode applications. The mapping driver may be a part of a management instrumentation system, such as the Windows Management Instrumentation (“WMI”) system. The WMI system provides an interface through which instrumented components, such as hardware devices, can provide information and notification to management applications in user mode through a consistent management information store. The mapping driver provides access to the ACPI system from the WMI management system.

Claims

1. A computing system having an operating environment with at least two operational modes for interfacing a user application to a system component, the system comprising:

a management module operating in a first operational mode that, in response to an instruction from an external application operating in the first operational mode, issues a first interface message to the system component; and

a translation module operating in a second operational mode, communicatively coupled to the system component, and further communicatively coupled to the management module, that receives the first interface message from the management module, translates information in the first interface message to create a second interface message, and issues the second interface message to the system component.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the system component has a corresponding interface module operating in the second operational mode, and wherein the translation module issues the second interface message to the system component via the corresponding interface module.

3. The system of claim 2 further comprising a communication channel for delivering interface messages between the management module operating in the first operational mode and the translation module operating in the second operational mode.

4. The system of claim 11, wherein the communication channel comprises:

a first communication module operating in the first operational mode; and

a second communication module operating in the second operational mode;

wherein the first and second communication modules are communicatively coupled to deliver interface messages between the management module operating in the first operational mode and the translation module operating in the second operational mode.

5. The system of claim 2, wherein, if the first interface message includes a request for data from the system component, the translation module further receives the requested data from the corresponding interface module and issues a third interface message to the management module that includes the requested data.

6. The system of claim 2, wherein, if the first interface message includes a request to set data at the system component, the translation module further receives the data to be set from the management module, and includes the data in the second interface message.

7. The system of claim 2, wherein, if the first interface message includes a request to monitor for an event to occur at the system component, the translation module includes a request in the second access request to be notified when the event occurs, receives a notification when the event occurs, and issues a third interface message to the management module indicating that the event occurred.

8. The system of claim 2, wherein the translation module translates the first interface message to create a second interface message by:

obtaining a globally unique identifier from the first interface message;

identifying a code associated with the globally unique identifier; and

creating the second interface message to include the code associated with the globally unique identifier.

9. The system of claim 2, wherein the first operational mode is a user mode.

10. The system of claim 2, wherein the second operational mode is a kernel mode.

11. The system of claim 2, wherein the corresponding interface module is an advanced configuration and power interface.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the translation module translates information in the first message to create the second message by:

obtaining a globally unique identifier from the first message;

identifying a code associated with the globally unique identifier; and

creating the second message according to the code associated with the globally unique identifier.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the translation module further translates information in the first message to create the second message by:

determining whether the first message includes a request to set data at the system device, and if so, receiving the data to be set from the management system and including the data to be set at the system device in the second message.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the system device is a WMI instrumented component.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the system device is a WMI instrumented hardware device.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein the system device is a WMI instrumented software device.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein the system device is a hardware device.

18. The system of claim 1, wherein the system device is a software device.