Method and system for reporting failures of a program module in a corporate environment

• US 7,257,743 B2
• Filed: 03/01/2004
• Issued: 08/14/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/23/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Glerum, Kirk A., Ruhlen, Matthew J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Beausoliel; Robert
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ehne; Charles
• Application Number:
  US10/790,645
• Publication Number:
  US 20040205421A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,261 Days
• Field of Search: 714/4, 714/25, 714/26, 714/38, 714/47, 714/48, 714/57
• US Class Current: 714/48
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0748 in a remote unit communicating with a single-box computer node experiencing an error/fault remote testing G06F11/2294
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0781 Error filtering or prioritizing based on a policy defined by the user or on a policy defined by a hardware/software module, e.g. according to a severity level

Abstract

A computer-implemented method and system for reporting failures in an application program module to a corporate file server. The failure may be a crash or a set-up failure. Once detected, the program failures are categorized, i.e. bucketed, and reported directly to a local file server operated by a corporation. The corporate file server may be used to store the failures encountered by users in a corporate environment until these failures are reported to a server operated by the manufacturer of the program module (a destination server). Once the failures are reported to the destination server, developers or programmers may examine the data and determine what is causing the failures in the program module. A failure reporting executable on the user'"'"'s computer provides communications between the failed application program module and the local file server. An administrative reporting executable (typically operated at the corporate file server) provides communications between the failure reporting executable and the corporate file server and between the corporate file server and the destination server. A cab tree, a counts tree and a status tree stores bucket information for a failure at the corporate file server. The bucket information for a crash may comprise an AppName, an AppVer, a ModuleName, a ModuleVer, and an offset into that module. The bucket information in the corporate file server may be uploaded to a destination server by a corporate system administrator thus preventing sensitive information from being disclosed by the corporation'"'"'s users.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method for synchronizing failure data maintained in a file server with a destination server, the method comprising the steps of:

loading a plurality of failure information entries into a memory of the file server, wherein each entry corresponds to a failure of a computer program module in a user computing device in communication with the file server;

for each failure information entry to upload to the destination server, performing the following steps;

automatically obtaining information from the destination server regarding the type of failure information that is needed;

automatically determining whether the type of failure information needed is the type in the failure information entry; and

if so, then uploading the failure information entry to the destination server.

2. The method recited in claim 1 further comprising the step of renaming the failure information entry to indicate that the failure information entry has been uploaded to the destination server.

3. The method recited in claim 1 further comprising the steps of:

if the type of failure information needed is not they type in the failure information entry, then downloading from the destination server to the corporate file server the type of information that needs to be obtained for the particular failure of the computer program module.

4. A system for reporting failures of a program module in a user computing device, the system comprising:

a failure reporting executable that is launched by the program module on the user computing device when a failure occurs in the program module, wherein the failure reporting executable is arranged to generate a failure report including bucket information that uniquely defines a location of the failure in the program module;

a file server operative to receive and store the failure report from the failure reporting executable; and

an administrative reporting executable comprising computer-executable steps for receiving the failure report from the failure reporting executable, and communicating the failure report to the file server for storage.

5. The system of claim 4 further comprising a destination server remote from the file server for periodically receiving uploads of the failure reports from the file server and wherein the administrative reporting executable is further operative to upload the failure reports to the destination server.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein the destination server is operated by the manufacturer of the program module and wherein the file server is maintained by an administrator of the user computing device.

7. A computer-readable storage device storing a set of computer-executable instructions implementing a method for managing failure reports maintained by a file server with a destination server remote from the file server, wherein the destination server is maintained by a manufacturer of a computer program module, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving at the file server, a failure report for the program module from a user device in communication with the file server, wherein the failure report includes failure information that defines a location of a failure in the program module;

storing the failure report received at the file server;

communicating at least a portion of the failure report to the destination server;

obtaining information from the destination server regarding the type of failure information that is needed;

comparing the type of failure information that is needed by the destination server with the type of information in the failure report; and

uploading the failure report from the file server to the destination server when the failure report includes the type of information requested by the destination server.

8. The computer-readable storage device storing the set of computer-executable instructions implementing the method of claim 7, the method further comprising modifying the failure report stored by the file server to indicate that the failure information entry has been uploaded to the destination server.

9. The computer-readable storage device storing the set of computer-executable instructions implementing the method of claim 7, the method further comprising receiving an update at the filer server identifying what information to collect for a second failure report.