System for creating virtual application, method for installing virtual application, method for calling native API and method for executing virtual application

• US 8,677,345 B2
• Filed: 08/13/2008
• Issued: 03/18/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/16/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: MarkAny, Inc.
• Original Assignee: MarkAny, Inc.
• Inventors: Choi, Jong Uk, Shin, Dongha, Jung, Sung Wook, Kim, Jiyeon, Malik, Muhammad Ali
• Primary Examiner(s): Tsai, Henry
• Assistant Examiner(s): Shyu, Jing-Yih
• Application Number:
  US12/673,684
• Publication Number:
  US 20110072424A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,043 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 717/174
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45537 Provision of facilities of other operating environments, e.g. WINE I/O emulation G06F13/105

Abstract

A virtual application creating system comprises: a virtual environment library block including a plurality of modules that process native application program interfaces (APIs) of an operating system such that the native application APIs are suited to a virtual environment, finding a module capable of processing a specific native API from the plurality of modules when the specific native API is called and operating the found module; a virtual application installation block receiving position information of an application to be virtualized and information on an installation place where the application will be virtualized and installed from a user and inserting the virtual environment library block into a memory to install a virtual application in the installation place; and a virtual application execution block executing the virtual application installed in the installation place.

Claims

1. A virtual application creating system comprising:

a virtual environment library block including a plurality of modules that process native application program interfaces (APIs) of an operating system of a host computer such that the native APIs are suited to a virtual environment independent of a host executed environment of the host computer, the virtual environment library block configured to find a module capable of processing a specific native API from the plurality of modules when the specific native API is called and operating the found module to process a function of the called native API in the virtual environment;

a virtual application installation block comprising a virtual installation preparation module receiving position information identifying a position of setup information for setting up an application to be virtualized and information on an installation place where the application to be virtualized will be installed from a user, storing the information as variables and providing the stored variables to a specific module, and a virtual environment library insertion module creating an application installation process, in a suspended mode, using the position information, provided by the virtual installation preparation module, and inserting the virtual environment library block into a memory to install a virtual application in the installation place, wherein the virtual environment library insertion module fetches the application installation process using the position information as a location of a setup file of the application received as a factor, inserts the virtual environment library block into the application installation process to convert the application installation process to a virtual application installation process to install the virtual application, and then starts the virtual application installation process; and

a virtual application execution block executing the virtual application installed in the installation place.

2. The virtual application creating system of claim 1, wherein the virtual installation preparation module receives the root directory of the virtual application as a factor, stores the factor in a variable “

vm_file_root”

, stores the position information as a location of a setup file of the application in a variable “

application” and

transmits the stored variable “

vm_file_root”

to the virtual environment library block.

3. The virtual application creating system of claim 1, wherein the virtual installation preparation module searches for the installation place according to the received information on the installation place to create a list of virtual applications.

4. The virtual application creating system of claim 1, wherein the native APIs of the operating system are window native APIs which are classified into a plurality of classes.

5. The virtual application creating system of claim 4, wherein the plurality of classes comprises:

a first class that receives a variable “

POBJECT_ATTRIBUTES ObjectAttributes”

as a factor and includes window native APIs that return data with respect to a PHANDLE type file or key;

a second class that receives data with respect to a HANDLE type file or key as a factor and includes window native APIs that return character strings related to object names; and

a third class that includes window native APIs that require child objects of objects.

6. The virtual application creating system of claim 5, wherein the virtual environment library block comprises:

a first class virtual file processing module processing a file related API among the native window APIs belonging to the first class such that the file related API is suited to a virtual environment;

a first class virtual registry processing module processing a registry related API among the native window APIs belonging to the first class such that the registry related API is suited to the virtual environment;

a second class virtual file processing module processing a file related API among the native window APIs belonging to the second class such that the file related API is suited to the virtual environment;

a second class virtual registry processing module processing a registry related API among the native window APIs belonging to the second class such that the registry related API is suited to the virtual environment;

a third class virtual file processing module processing a file related API among the native window APIs belonging to the third class such that the file related API is suited to the virtual environment; and

a third class virtual registry processing module processing a registry related API among the native window APIs belonging to the third class such that the registry related API is suited to the virtual environment.

7. The virtual application creating system of claim 5, wherein the plurality of classes further comprises:

a fourth class including window native APIs used for an application installation process; and

a fifth class including window native APIs used to store, recover and delete registry while an application is executed.

8. The virtual application creating system of claim 7, wherein the virtual environment library block further comprises:

a fourth class virtual environment library insertion module processing the native window APIs belonging to the fourth class such that the native window APIs are suited to a virtual environment; and

a fifth class virtual registry storage module, a fifth class virtual registry recovery module and a fifth class registry deletion module which process the native window APIs belonging to the fifth class such that the native window APIs are suited to the virtual environment.

9. The virtual application creating system of claim 1, wherein the virtual application execution block comprises:

a virtual execution preparation module storing information of the root directory of a virtual application to be executed and the position information as variables and providing the stored variables to a specific module; and

a virtual application execution module creating a virtual application execution process using the information provided by the virtual execution preparation module and executing the virtual application.

10. The virtual application creating system of claim 9, wherein the virtual application execution module creates the name, execution instructions and command line parameters of the virtual application using the information provided by the virtual execution preparation module, sets flags for starting the virtual application execution process and creates the virtual application execution process using the created execution instructions and command lines together with the virtual environment library block.

11. The virtual application creating system of claim 9, wherein the virtual application execution block comprises:

a window creating module initializing a window class, registering the initialized window class, creating a window and acquiring a window handle of the created window;

a task-bar icon creating module creating an icon of the virtual application execution block in a task bar;

a call-back message processing module processing a call-back message according to the operation of the icon created by the task-bar icon creating module; and

a task-bar pop-up menu creating module creating a pop-up menu according to call of the call-back message processing module and registering a virtual application list from which the installed virtual application can be selected in the created pop-up menu as a menu.

12. The virtual application creating system of claim 1, wherein the installation place is a specific directory of an external storage unit.

13. A method for installing a virtual application on a device coupled to a host computer, comprising the steps of:

receiving position information identifying a position of setup information for setting up an application to be virtualized and information on an installation place on the device where the application to be virtualized will be installed from a user;

storing the information as variables and providing the stored variables to a specific module;

creating an application installation process, in a suspended mode, using the received position information;

inserting a virtual environment library block including a plurality of modules into a memory to install a virtual application in the installation place, the modules processing native application program interfaces (APIs) of an operating system of the host computer such that the native APIs are suited to a virtual environment independent of a host executed environment of the host computer, the virtual environment library block configured to find a module capable of processing a specific native API from the plurality of modules when the specific native API is called and operating the found module to process a function of the called native API in the virtual environment;

fetching the application installation process using the position information as a location of a setup file of the application received as a factor;

inserting the virtual environment library block into the created application installation process to convert the application installation process to a virtual application installation process to install the virtual application; and

performing the virtual application installation process to install a virtual application in the installation place.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising the steps of:

confirming a module capable of processing a specific native API among the plurality of modules when the specific native API is called while a virtual application is installed and executed; and

operating the confirmed module to process a function of the called native API in the virtual environment.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising the steps of:

creating a virtual application execution process for executing the virtual application using the information included in the variables; and

inserting a virtual environment library including a plurality of modules capable of constructing the virtual environment into the created virtual application execution process and performing the virtual application execution process.