Objective assessment of application crashes from a customer environment

• US 8,286,036 B2
• Filed: 04/18/2011
• Issued: 10/09/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 01/15/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Mahajan, Dhananjay Madhusudan, Ellis, John Leo, Papatla, Ram P.
• Primary Examiner(s): SCHELL, JOSEPH O
• Application Number:
  US13/088,829
• Publication Number:
  US 20110197099A1
• Time in Patent Office: 540 Days
• Field of Search: 714/45, 714/46, 714/57, 714/48
• US Class Current: 714/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0766 Error or fault reporting or storing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3672 Test management

Abstract

A computerized method for collecting error data and providing error reports relating to occurrences of errors of software applications installed on one or more computing devices is disclosed. Data for describing software applications and identifying software application errors is collected from the computing devices and stored in a catalog. Data associated with error occurrences is obtained and combined with related data being stored in the catalog. A report is generated based on the error occurrences and related catalog data.

Claims

1. A computerized method for collecting error data and providing error reports relating to occurrences of errors of software applications installed on a plurality of selected computing devices, said computerized method comprising:

receiving registration information from each of a plurality of selected computing devices having software applications installed thereon;

registering each of the selected computing devices based on the received registration information;

tracking error data for each of the software applications installed on each of the registered computing devices, said error data relating to the occurrences of errors in said software applications, said error data including a file name of a file belonging to the software application in which each error occurred and an identifier of the user of the registered computing device when the error occurred;

receiving user-selected reporting criteria, said user-selected reporting criteria including a user-selected particular user and a user-selected software application, wherein the user-selected software application is a software application installed on at least one of the registered computing devices; and

generating an error report as a function of the user-selected reporting criteria, said error report identifying a total number of occurrences on the plurality of selected computing devices of errors for the user-selected particular user for the user-selected software application based on the file names and the user identifiers in the tracked error data.

2. The computerized method of claim 1 wherein the registration information includes information about the software and hardware of the selected computing device, said information including file names of files belonging to software application products installed on said selected computing device.

3. The computerized method of claim 2 further comprising creating a catalog including descriptive information for software application products cross referenced with the software and hardware information provided during registration of the selected computing device and with the tracked occurrences of errors in each of the software applications installed on the selected computing device.

4. The computerized method of claim 3 wherein tracking the occurrences of errors in each of the software applications installed on each of the registered computing devices comprises receiving error data including a file name of a file belonging to the software application in an error occurred, and wherein the descriptive information is cross referenced in the catalog to the error data based on the file name.

5. The computerized method of claim 1 further comprising identifying a user of a computing device.

6. The computerized method of claim 5 wherein identifying a user includes receiving login information from the user and authenticating the user based on the received login information wherein authenticating the user comprises associating a unique identifier with the user.

7. The computerized method of claim 6 further comprising associating the unique identifier associated with the identified user to the registered computing devices.

8. The computerized method of claim 5 wherein the identified user and one or more certain registered computing devices are associated with a particular organization.

9. The computerized method of claim 8 further comprising identifying a second user of a second computing device wherein said second identified user and second one or more registered computing devices are associated with a second organization and wherein the generated error report identifies a total number of occurrences of errors during the user-selected time period for the user-selected software application installed on the certain registered one or more computing devices associated with the particular organization and identifies a total number of occurrences of errors during the user-selected time period for the user-selected software application installed on the second one or more registered computing devices associated with the second organization.

10. A system comprising:

a processor configured to receive registration information from each of a plurality of selected computing devices, said registration information including information about the software and hardware of the selected computing device, said information including file names of files belonging to software application products installed on said selected computing device; and

a memory area for storing a catalog, said catalog including the registration information received from each of the plurality of selected computing devices;

wherein the processor is further configured to track error data relating to the occurrences of errors in each of the software applications installed on each of the registered computing devices, said error data including a file name of a file belonging to the software application in which each error occurred and an identifier of the user of the computing device when the error occurred, said processor being further configured to receive user-selected reporting criteria, and to generate an error report, said user-selected reporting criteria including a user-selected particular user and a user-selected software application, wherein the user-selected software application is a software application installed on at least one of the selected computing devices, said error report identifying a total number of occurrences on the plurality of selected computing devices of errors for the user-selected particular user for the user-selected software application based on the filenames and user identifiers in the tracked error data.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein the catalog includes descriptive information for software application products cross referenced with the software and hardware information provided during registration about the computing device and with the tracked occurrences of errors the software applications installed on each of the registered computing devices.

12. The system of claim 10 wherein the processor is further configured to identify a user of a computing device.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein identifying a user includes receiving login information from the user and authenticating the user based on the received login information wherein authenticating the user comprises associating a unique identifier with the user.

14. The system of claim 13 further comprising associating the unique identifier associated with the identified user to the registered computing devices.

15. The system of claim 12 wherein the identified user and one or more certain registered computing devices are associated with a particular organization.

16. The system of claim 15 wherein the processor is further configured to identify a second user of a second computing device wherein said second identified user and second one or more registered computing devices are associated with a second organization and wherein the generated error report identifies a total number of occurrences of errors during the user-selected time period for the user-selected software application installed on the certain registered one or more computing devices associated with the particular organization and identifies a total number of occurrences of errors during the user-selected time period for the user-selected software application installed on the second one or more registered computing devices associated with the second organization.

17. A computerized method of collecting error data and providing error reports relating to occurrences of errors of software applications installed a plurality of computing devices connected to a data communication network, said computerized method comprising:

obtaining error data from a plurality of computing devices, said error data relating to the occurrence of errors in software applications installed on the plurality of computing devices, wherein for each occurrence of an error, the error data includes a file name of a file belonging to the software application in which the error occurred and the identifier of the user of the computing device when the error occurred;

receiving a request from a particular computing device for an error report for a particular user; and

providing a report to the requesting particular computing device that summarizes errors associated with the particular user that occurred cumulatively across the plurality of computing devices based on the file name, included in the error data, of the file belonging to the software application in which the error occurred and based on the identifier of the user of the computing device when the error occurred.

18. The computerized method of claim 17 further comprising, for each of the plurality of computing devices, receiving information about the software and hardware of the computing device, said information including file names of files belonging to software application products installed on said computing device.

19. The computerized method of claim 18 further comprising creating a catalog including descriptive information for software application products cross referenced with the software and hardware information provided during registration about the computing device and with the error data relating to the occurrence of errors of the software applications installed on the computing device.

20. The computerized method of claim 19 wherein the descriptive information is cross referenced in the catalog to the error data based on the file name, included in said error data, of the file belonging to the software application in which the error occurred.