Cross platform program installation on drives using drive object

• US 6,601,236 B1
• Filed: 03/29/1999
• Issued: 07/29/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 03/29/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Curtis, Bryce Allen
• Primary Examiner(s): INGBERG, TODD D
• Application Number:
  US09/280,353
• Time in Patent Office: 1,583 Days
• Field of Search: 717/11, 717/174, 717/177
• US Class Current: 717/177
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation

Abstract

Disclosed is a set of tools or program instructions, an installation program, and a system that operates a drive in a platform independent manner. A drive object represents a single drive mounted by an operating system and contains fields providing information including drive name, block size, free space, type, format long file name support, and space needed by the files to be installed on that drive. During the installation process, each drive is processed to ensure that the drive has sufficient free space for the files to be installed.

Claims

1. A method for installing a program onto a computer including an operating system, comprising:

executing an installation program which generates a separate drive object for each storage device having a capability to be a destination drive in the computer on which at least a portion of the program is being installed;

storing drive information of each storage device in each separate drive object;

receiving an indication indicating at least one intended destination drive for each portion of the program;

storing, in each drive object corresponding to one intended destination drive an amount of data storage space needed to store a portion of the program intended to be stored onto the destination drive;

determining, from the drive information stored in the drive object for one intended destination drive, whether the intended destination drive has sufficient storage space to install the portion of the program; and

storing onto the intended destination drive the portion of the program intended to be stored if it is determined that the intended destination drive has sufficient data storage space available.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said drive information stored with each drive object comprises at least one of the amount of free space available on the data storage drive, drive name, block size, drive type, and data storage format.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication is received from user input selecting an intended destination drive.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

getting, by the installation program, from the drive object the type of the destination drive selected by the user and rejecting the selection if the selected data storage drive is an improper type.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said drive information further includes the a block size of the data storage drive representing a minimum amount of space required to store a file on the data storage drive and wherein said amount of data storage space needed to store a portion of the program intended to be stored onto the data storage drive is a function of said data storage drive block size.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the indication indicating an intended destination drive for each portion of the program is performed by the installation program that assigns the intended destination drive for each portion of the program.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the installation program is a cross platform installation program which generates the drive objects independently of the operating system running on the computer, and wherein the cross platform installation program accesses operating specific commands for a given operating system on the computer to perform installation program operations.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

registering, for each destination drive, file sets including the portion of the program intended to be stored onto the destination drive with the drive object for the destination drive, wherein the data storage space needed to store the portion of program intended to be stored on the destination drive stored in the drive object comprises a number of bytes needed to install the file sets registered with the drive object, and wherein storing onto the intended destination drive the portion of the program comprises storing the file sets registered with the drive object for the intended destination drive.

9. A system for installing a program, comprising:

a computer including an operating system,

a computer monitor;

a memory device;

program logic executed by the computer in communication with the computer monitor and the memory device, wherein the program logic performs;

(i) executing an installation program which generates a separate drive object for each storage device having a capability to be a destination drive in the computer on which at least a portion of the program is being installed;

(ii) storing drive information of each storage device in each separate drive object;

(iii) receiving an indication indicating at least one intended destination drive for each portion of the program;

(iv) storing, in each drive object corresponding to one intended destination drive, an amount of data storage space needed to store a portion of the program intended to be stored onto the destination drive;

(v) determining, from the drive information stored in the drive object for one intended destination drive, whether the intended destination drive has sufficient storage space to install the portion of the program; and

(vi) storing onto the intended destination drive the portion of the program intended to be stored if it is determined that the intended destination drive has sufficient data storage space available.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the drive information stored with each drive object comprises at least one of the amount of free space available on the data storage drive, drive name, block size, drive type, and data storage format.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the indication is received from user input selecting an intended destination drive.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the program logic further performs for getting from the drive object the type of the destination drive selected by the user and rejecting the selection if the selected data storage drive is an improper type.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein said drive information further includes a block size of the data storage drive representing the a minimum amount of space required to store a file on the data storage drive and wherein said amount of data storage space needed to store a portion of the program intended to be stored onto the data storage drive is a function of said data storage drive block size.

14. The system of claim 9, wherein the step of receiving the indication indicating an intended destination drive for each portion of the program is performed by the installation program that assigns the intended destination drive for each portion of the program.

15. The system of claim 9, wherein the installation program is a cross platform installation program which generates the drive objects independently of the operating system running on the computer, and wherein the cross platform installation program accesses operating specific commands for a given operating system on the computer to perform installation program operations.

16. The system of claim 9, wherein the program logic further performs:

registering, for each destination drive, file sets including the portion of the program intended to be stored onto the destination drive with the drive object for the destination drive, wherein the data storage space needed to store the portion of program intended to be stored on the destination drive stored in the drive object comprises a number of bytes needed to install the file sets registered with the drive object, and wherein storing onto the intended destination drive the portion of the program comprises storing the file sets registered with the drive object for the intended destination drive.

17. An article of manufacture for use in programming a computer system to install a program, the article of manufacture comprising computer useable media accessible to the computer system, wherein the computer usable media includes at least one computer program that is capable of causing the computer system to perform:

executing an installation program which generates a separate drive object for each storage device having a capability to be a destination drive in the computer on which at least a portion of the program is being installed;

storing drive information of each storage device in each separate drive object;

receiving an indication indicating at least one intended destination drive for each portion of the program;

storing, in each drive object corresponding to one intended destination drive an amount of data storage space needed to store a portion of the program intended to be stored onto the destination drive;

determining, from the drive information stored in the drive object for one intended destination drive, whether the intended destination drive has sufficient storage space to install the portion of the program; and

storing onto the intended destination drive the portion of the program intended to be stored if it is determined that the intended destination drive has sufficient data storage space available.

18. The article of manufacture of claim 17, wherein said drive information stored with each drive object comprises at least one of the amount of free space available on the data storage drive, drive name, block size, drive type, and data storage format.

19. The article of manufacture of claim 17, wherein the indication is received from user input selecting an intended destination drive.

20. The article of manufacture of claim 19, wherein said drive object variables further include a type of the data storage store drive, further comprising getting from the drive object the type of the data storage drive selected by the user and rejecting the selection if the selected data storage drive is an improper type.

21. The article of manufacture of claim 17, further comprising:

getting, by the installation program, from the drive object a type of the destination drive selected by the user and rejecting the selection if the selected data storage drive is an improper type.

22. The article of manufacture of claim 17, wherein receiving the indication indicating an intended destination drive for each portion of the program is performed by the installation program that assigns the intended destination drive for each portion of the program.

23. The article of manufacture of claim 17, wherein the installation program is a cross platform installation program which generates the drive objects independently of the operating system running on the computer, and wherein the cross platform installation program accesses operating specific commands for a given operating system on the computer to perform installation program operations.

24. The article of manufacture of claim 17, further comprising:

registering, for each destination drive, file sets including the portion of the program intended to be stored onto the destination drive with the drive object for the destination drive, wherein the data storage space needed to store the portion of program intended to be stored on the destination drive stored in the drive object comprises a number of bytes needed to install the file sets registered with the drive object, and wherein storing onto the intended destination drive the portion of the program comprises storing the file sets registered with the drive object for the intended destination drive.

25. A method for installing program files of a computer program onto data storage drives of a computer system having an operating system, wherein the operating system includes native commands for querying the data storage drives available to the operating system, comprising:

making a call to a cross-platform installation program, wherein the cross-platform installation program is capable of installing the computer program on different operating system platforms;

creating with the cross-platform installation program at least one drive object representing a data storage drive and having fields for storing information about the storage drive;

making a call, with the cross-platform installation program, to an operating system interface program specific to the operating system on which the computer program is being installed; and

updating, with the operating system interface program, at least one field in the drive object with information about the data storage drive.

26. The method of claimed 25, wherein said updating includes:

causing the operating system to query the data storage drive to determine an amount of free space available on the data storage drive and wherein the cross-platform installation program is capable of determining a total storage space needed to store each portion of the program intended to be stored onto the data storage drive; and

installing onto the data storage drive each portion of the program intended to be stored onto the data storage drive if the total storage space needed is less than or equal to the amount of free space available on the data storage drive.

27. A system for installing a program onto data storage drives of a computer system having an operating system, wherein the operating system includes native commands for querying the data storage drives available to the operating system, comprising:

a computer including an operating system;

a computer monitor;

a memory device storing at least one drive object storing variables including a name of a data storage drive and an amount of data storage space needed to store a portion of the program intended to be stored onto the data storage drive;

program logic executed by the computer in communication with the computer monitor and the memory device, wherein the program logic performs;

(i) making a call to a cross-platform installation program, wherein the cross-platform installation program is capable of installing the computer program on different operating system platforms;

(ii) creating with the cross-platform installation program at least one drive object for representing the data storage drive and having fields for storing information about the storage drive;

(iii) making a call, with the cross-platform installation program, to an operating system interface program specific to the operating system on which the computer program is being installed; and

(iv) updating, with the operating system interface program, at least one field in the drive object with information about the data storage drive.

28. The system of claim 27, wherein said operating system interface program causes the operating system to query data storage drive to determine an amount of free space available on the data storage drive and wherein the cross-platform installation program is capable of determining a total storage space needed to store each portion of the program intended to be stored onto the data storage drive;

and wherein the program logic further performs installing onto the data storage drive each portion of the program intended to be stored onto the data storage drive if the total storage space needed is less than or equal to the amount of free space available on the data storage drive.

29. An article of manufacture for use in programing a computer system to install program files of a computer program onto data storage drives of a computer system having an operating system, wherein the operating system includes native commands for querying the data storage drives available to the operating system, the article of manufacture comprising computer useable media accessible to the computer system, wherein the computer usable media includes at least one computer program that is capable of causing the computer system to perform:

making a call to a cross-platform installation program, wherein the cross-platform installation program is capable of installing the computer program on different operating system platforms;

creating with the cross-platform installation program at least one drive object representing a data storage drive and having fields for storing information about the storage drive;

making a call, with the cross-platform installation program, to an operating system interface program specific to the operating system on which the computer program is being installed; and

updating, with the operating system interface program, at least one field in the drive object with information about the data storage drive.

30. The article of claim 29, wherein said updating includes:

causing the operating system to query the data storage drive to determine an amount of free space available on the data storage drive and wherein the cross-platform installation program is capable of determining the a total storage space needed to store each portion of the program intended to be stored onto the data storage drive; and

installing onto the data storage drive each portion of the program intended to be stored onto the data storage drive if the total storage space needed is less than or equal to the amount of free space available on the data storage drive.