Rebootless display driver upgrades

• US 20070101343A1
• Filed: 10/31/2005
• Published: 05/03/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Chitre, Ameet, Nene, Sameer, Andrews, Marcus, Barakat, Youssef, McMullen, Max
• Granted Patent: US 8,056,072 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/321
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4411 Configuring for operating with peripheral devices; Loading of device drivers

Abstract

Systems and methods for rebootless updating of a IHV display driver are disclosed. According to such a method, first, the operating system stops the driver from running. Second, the system switches over to an interim or temporary display driver, which be a default driver provided with the operating system. Third, the new hardware-specific driver is started. Thus, a hardware-specific display driver may be updated without rebooting.

Claims

1. A rebootless method for upgrading a hardware-specific display driver on a host computer, the method comprising:

stopping a currently-running hardware-specific display driver; and

starting an upgraded hardware-specific display driver without rebooting between stopping the currently-running hardware-specific display driver and starting the upgraded hardware-specific display driver.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

detecting a display driver upgrade request; and

stopping the currently-running hardware-specific display driver in response to the upgrade request.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein a setup engine copies files associated with the upgraded display driver into memory on the host computer.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

starting an interim display driver on the host computer.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the interim video display driver is a default driver provided with the operating system.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein, after the currently-running driver is stopped, sufficient resources remain allocated to enable the default driver to run in the interim.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein stopping the currently-running hardware-specific display driver comprises a plug-and-play (PnP) Manager sending to a graphics device stack a notification to release a dependency on the video display driver software.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein stopping the currently-running hardware-specific display driver comprises pausing a video display client.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein stopping the currently-running hardware-specific display driver comprises informing the display driver to clean up its state.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein starting the upgraded hardware-specific display driver comprises a plug-and-play (PnP) Manager sending to a graphics device stack a notification to add and start the new device.

11. The method of claim 4, wherein starting the upgraded hardware-specific display driver comprises stopping the interim driver.

12. A rebootless method for transitioning to an upgraded hardware-specific display driver on a host computer, the method comprising:

stopping a first hardware-specific display driver from running on the host computer;

starting a second display driver associated with the hardware;

receiving a call from an application to perform a graphics operation associated with the first display driver; and

informing the application that hardware is unavailable,

wherein, in response to the information that the hardware is unavailable, the application reroutes itself to the second display driver.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the call from the application is received after the first display driver is stopped.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

starting an interim display driver associated with the hardware before starting the second display driver.

15. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

starting a third video display driver associated with the hardware after starting the second video display driver.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the third video display driver is started after the call from the application is received.

17. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

spoofing the first display driver to the application until the application reroutes itself to the second display driver.

18. A rebootless method for upgrading a hardware-specific display driver on a host computer, the method comprising:

stopping a currently-running hardware-specific display driver;

starting an interim video display driver; and

then starting an upgraded hardware-specific display driver.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the interim display driver is a default driver provided with an operating system running on the host computer.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein, after the currently-running driver is stopped, sufficient resources are allocated to enable the interim driver to run.