Running applications from removable media

• US 20080005472A1
• Filed: 06/30/2006
• Published: 01/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Khalidi, Yousef A., Talluri, Madhusudhan
• Application Number:
  US11/479,456
• Publication Number:
  US 20080005472A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/115
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44584 Portable applications, i.e. making applications self-contained, e.g. U3 standard

Abstract

Off-the-shelf software can be run from a removable medium without installing the software onto the machine and without modifying the off-the-shelf software. Files and application-associated state created or modified during execution of the application that is not installed on the computer may be saved to the removable media or to a specified area of the system file system and system registry (if present).

Claims

1. A system for running an application on a computer from a removable medium comprising:

an operating system that creates a silo in response to connection of a removable medium on which is stored a plurality of files comprising a removable medium file system and a registry, wherein the silo presents a merged view of a system file directory and the removable medium file system to the application running in the silo.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the silo shares the operating system of the computer.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the silo presents a merged view of a system registry and the removable medium registry to the application running in the silo.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the system file system or registry is read only access to the application running in the silo.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the removable medium file system or registry is read-write access to the application running in the silo.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein changes in application-related state are persisted to the removable medium during execution of the application in the silo.

7. A method for running an application on a computer from a removable medium, without installing the application on the computer comprising:

creating a silo on the computer in response to insertion of the removable medium into the computer, wherein the silo presents a merged view of a system file directory and a removable medium file system directory to an unmodified off-the-shelf application running in the silo; and

executing the unmodified off-the-shelf application from the removable medium without copying the unmodified off-the-shelf application onto the computer, wherein the unmodified off-the-shelf application executes within the silo.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein a portion of the system file directory can be specified to be read-writable to the application running in the silo.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the silo presents a merged view of a system registry and a removable medium registry to the unmodified off-the-shelf application running in the silo.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein changes in application-related state are persisted to the removable medium during execution of the application in the silo.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein changes in program settings are persisted to specified areas of the registry in the removable medium.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein the unmodified off-the-shelf application is packaged on the removable medium with a subset of a registry and file system directories and initialization code, wherein the initialization code performs initialization acts ordinarily performed during installation of the off-shelf-application onto a computer.

13. The method of claim 7, wherein the silo is deleted when the application terminates.

14. The method of claim 7, wherein a degree of access available to the application to the system file directory is user-specifiable.

15. A removable computer-readable medium having program code stored thereon that, when executed by a computing environment, causes the computing environment to:

create an isolated execution environment comprising a silo, wherein the silo presents to an unmodified off-the-shelf application executing in the silo, a merged view of a system file directory and a file directory on the computer-readable medium, wherein the file directory on the computer-readable medium comprises program files comprising the unmodified off-the-shelf application executing in the silo and data files associated with the application executing in the silo;

in response to user input, executing the application in the silo, wherein the application has read-only access to the system file directory and read-write access to the file directory on the computer-readable medium.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, having further program code stored thereon, that when executed by the computing environment, causes the computing environment to:

present to the unmodified off-the-shelf application executing in the silo, a merged view of a system registry and a registry on the computer-readable medium.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, having further program code stored thereon, that when executed by the computing environment, causes the computing environment to:

persist changes in application-related state during execution of the application in the silo to the removable medium.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, having further program code stored thereon, that when executed by a computing environment, causes the computing environment to:

persist changes in program settings for the application in the silo to the removable medium.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, having further program code stored thereon, that when executed by the computing environment, causes the computing environment to:

delete the silo when the application terminates.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, having further program code stored thereon, that when executed by the computing environment, causes the computing environment to:

discard application-related state and application-related changes to system configuration and settings upon termination of the application.