REPAIRING CORRUPT SOFTWARE

• US 20120144383A1
• Filed: 12/01/2010
• Published: 06/07/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/01/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Mishra, Abhinav, Day, Michael, Keen, Charles, Fei, Mingbiao, Rivait, Derek, Back, Alan B., Sigwald, Rainer
• Granted Patent: US 9,158,605 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/173
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/00 Error detection; Error correction; Monitoring error detection, correction or monitoring in information storage based on relative movement between record carrier and transducer G11B20/18; monitoring, i.e. supervising the progress of recording or reproducing G11B27/36; in static stores G11C29/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1433 during software upgrading
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1469 Backup restoration techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/36 Preventing errors by testing or debugging software
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/84 Using snapshots, i.e. a logical point-in-time copy of the data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/658 Incremental updates; Differential updates
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3236 using cryptographic hash functions

Abstract

A system and method for repairing corrupt software components of a computer system. Corrupt software is detected and repaired utilizing an automated component repair service. Repair files are downloaded from an external storage location and used to repair the corruption. The downloaded files are preferably the smallest amount of data necessary to repair the identified corruption. The process of repairing corrupt files is used in conjunction with a software updating service to resolve problems that occur when corrupt software is updated by allowing a corrupt component to be repaired and to then uninstalled such that an updated component can be properly installed.

Claims

1. A method for repairing software of a computer system, the method comprising:

with at least one computing device;

detecting a corrupt component of software, the corrupt component comprising a plurality of files;

determining a set of corrupt files selected from said plurality of files, the set of corrupt files being in need of repair to fix the corrupt component;

obtaining a set of repair files, the set of repair files corresponding to the set of corrupt files; and

repairing the at least one corrupt component.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising validating each individual repair file in the set of repair files using a cryptographically secure hash key.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising locating the set of repair files on an external server, wherein locating the set of repair files comprises:

mapping the corrupt component to a package; and

mapping the package to a location on the external server.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein repairing the at least one corrupt component comprises overwriting the set of corrupt files with the set of repair files.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein detecting the corrupt component is triggered by a notification received from a system health checker component, the notification indicating that the corrupt component is corrupt.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining a set of repair files comprises reading from a store local to the computer system or obtaining from a peer to peer network source.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein detecting the corrupt component is triggered by a user manually initiating a corruption scan of the computer system (210).

8. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the set of corrupt files comprises:

performing a hash function on at least one file of the plurality of files resulting in a hash result; and

comparing the hash result with a cryptographically secure hash key.

9. A system for updating one or more corrupt software components installed on a computing device, the system comprising:

a processor;

a software updating service executing on the processor, the software updating service programmed to;

receive an update request;

determine the one or more corrupt software components to be updated;

select a first component to update, the first component selected from the one or more determined components to be updated;

a component repair service executing on the processor, the component repair service programmed to;

detect that the first component is corrupt, the first component comprising a plurality of files;

determine a set of corrupt files within the plurality of files;

download a set of repair files that correspond to the set of corrupt files;

repair the first component using the repair files;

the software updating service further programmed to;

uninstall the repaired first component;

download an updated version of the first component; and

install the updated version of the first component.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the component repair service is further programmed to validate each repair file in the set of repair files using a cryptographically secure hash key.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the component repair service is further programmed to locate the set of repair files on the external server, wherein locating the set of repair files comprises:

mapping the corrupt component to a package; and

mapping the package to a location on the external server.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein the component repair service is initiated by an error message received from the software updating service.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein determining the set of corrupt files comprises:

performing a hash function on at least one file of the plurality of files resulting in a hash result; and

comparing the hash result with a cryptographically secure hash key.

14. The system of claim 9, wherein the software updating service is further programmed to:

check whether all of the corrupt software components have been updated; and

in response to a determination that one or more of the corrupt software components has not been updated, select a second component to update.

15. The system of claim 9, wherein repairing the first component comprises overwriting the set of corrupt files with the set of repair files.

16. At least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a processor of a computer system comprising a storage device, perform a method comprising:

receiving a request to update a component;

performing a hash function on a first file of the component to generate a hash result;

comparing the hash result with a hash key;

in response to the hash result not being equal to the hash key;

downloading a repair file corresponding to the first file; and

overwriting the first file with the repair file;

uninstalling the component;

downloading an updated version of the component; and

installing the updated version of the component.

17. The at least one non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the first file is a payload file and the hash key is stored in a metadata file.

18. The at least one non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the first file is a metadata file and the hash key is stored in the registry.

19. The at least one non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the request to update the component is generated in response to detecting that the component is corrupt because of a malicious attack on the computer system.

20. The at least one non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the component comprises a component of an operating system.