System, method, and computer-readable medium for repairing an application program that has been patched

• US 6,427,227 B1
• Filed: 03/03/1999
• Issued: 07/30/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 03/03/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Chamberlain, Benjamin C.
• Primary Examiner(s): Chaki, Kakali
• Application Number:
  US09/261,801
• Time in Patent Office: 1,245 Days
• Field of Search: 717/3, 717/4, 717/11, 707/200-202, 707/203, 707/204, 707/205, 714/2, 713/100
• US Class Current: 717/124
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/60 Software deployment

Abstract

A method repairing an installed and patched application program if a patched resource needed by the application program becomes inadvertently deleted or otherwise unavailable to the application program is disclosed. Briefly described, the present invention makes possible a system for verifying the existence of a resource needed to support a feature of the application program. The system may respond to a request from the application program to make use of the resource by first verifying the existence of the resource at an expected location. If the resource does not exist at the expected location, rather than returning an error to the application program, the system reinstalls the missing resource without interrupting the normal operation of the application program. If the resource has been patched since its original installation, the system reapplies the patch to the resource subsequent to reinstalling the resource.

Claims

1. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for repairing an application program that has become damaged, which when executed comprises:

receiving an indication that a resource operative to provide functionality to the application program is needed by the application program;

verifying that the resource is available to the application program at an expected location;

in response to a positive verification of the availability of the resource to the application program at the expected location, passing an existence verification to the application program;

in response to a failure to verify the availability of the resource to the application program at the expected location, determining if a patch exists for patching the application program;

in response to a positive determination that the patch exists for patching the application program, accessing the patch to retrieve information for applying the patch to the application program;

installing the resource at the expected location; and

applying the patch to the resource.

2. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the step of verifying the availability of the resource occurs in a background process while the application program awaits the result of the verification.

3. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein:

the expected location of the resource is described by a resource path; and

the existence verification comprises the resource path.

4. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the determining if the patch exists step comprises reading from an installer registry information describing the resources installed for the application program.

5. The computer-readable medium of claim 4, wherein the information describing the resources further comprises patch information describing the existence of a patch associated with the application program.

6. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the accessing the patch step comprises reading installation information contained in the patch to identify instructions for execution by an installer application to apply the patch to the resource.

7. A computer-implemented method for reinstalling a resource of an application program, the resource having been patched, comprising:

accessing an installer registry to identify an expected location for the resource, the installer registry containing the expected location for the resource, an indication that a patch exists, and an indication that the resource is affected by the patch;

verifying the existence of the resource at the expected location;

in response to a failure to verify the existence of the resource at the expected location, installing the resource to the expected location; and

applying the patch to the resource.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein the step of installing the resource to the expected location incorporates the step of applying the patch to the resource such that the resource is patched when it is installed.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein the step of applying the patch to the resource comprises altering a program file associated with the resource to include patch bits.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein the patch bits comprise substitute information to replace existing information within the program file.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the resource is replaced with a new resource associated with the patch when it is installed.

12. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for ensuring that a program file is available to an application program, which when executed perform steps comprising:

storing an indication that a patch exists and that the program file is affected by the patch;

in response to a need for the program file, verifying the existence of the program file at an expected location;

in response to a failure to verify the existence of the program file at the expected location, patching the program file and installing the program file to the expected location.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 12, wherein the storing an indication step comprises writing at least one entry in an installer registry maintained by an installation application and used to store configuration information of the application program, the configuration information including the expected location of the program file.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the verifying the existence step comprises reading from the installer registry the expected location of the program file and determining if the program file exists at the expected location.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 12, wherein the patching the program file step comprises reading a patch file containing instructions for patching the program file during the installing the program file step.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 12, wherein the patching the program file step is performed as the program file is being installed to the expected location during the installing the program file step.