System and method for displaying images of virtual machine environments

• US 7,506,265 B1
• Filed: 07/17/2000
• Issued: 03/17/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 07/17/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Traut, Eric P., Martz, Benjamin
• Primary Examiner(s): Lo; Weilun
• Assistant Examiner(s): Chuong; Truc T
• Application Number:
  US09/617,669
• Time in Patent Office: 3,165 Days
• Field of Search: 365/700, 365/716, 365/719, 365/764, 365/781, 365/835, 365/838, 386/96, 386/98, 700/17, 709/203, 715/765, 715/835, 715/800, 715/810, 715/722, 715/718, 715/778, 715/736, 715/781, 715/744, 715/763, 715/838
• US Class Current: 715/763
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45537 Provision of facilities of other operating environments, e.g. WINE I/O emulation G06F13/105

Abstract

A system and method for displaying thumbnail images of the video output of one or more software applications in a window or similar graphical interface to allow the user of a computer system to conveniently and quickly monitor the overall status and progress of several software applications that are running simultaneously. The thumbnail images are generated from the VRAM associated with the software application and are preferably displayed with information corresponding to the associated software application. The thumbnail images may be static or generated at regular intervals according to user preference and the status of the software application.

Claims

1. A single computer system for running one or more software applications comprising:

a processor;

a computer readable storage medium including instructions executable by the processor, the computer readable storage medium comprising;

instructions for a host operating system suitable for displaying a graphical user interface;

instructions for multiple guest operating systems configured to execute on the single computer system in virtual machines emulated by one or more emulator programs running on the host operating system; and

wherein the host operating system is configured to display a reduced-size continually updated representation of the video output of at least one operating system from the multiple guest operating systems that are being operated in a background mode;

wherein the multiple guest operating systems that operate in a background mode are active;

wherein video output of the multiple guest operating systems is stored in one or more virtual video memory components;

wherein the reduced-size continually updating representation of the video output from at least one guest operating system is represented as at least one thumbnail image, the at least one thumbnail image is generated from the video output stored in the video memory components, and the at least one thumbnail image is generated at predetermined intervals while software applications are active; and

wherein the predetermined intervals are such that the at least one thumbnail image is a real-time representation of the video output from the active software applications.

2. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the one or more of the video memory components are VRAM memory.

3. The computer system of claim 1,

wherein the graphical user interface is a windowing environment suitable for displaying one or more windows;

and

wherein the portion of the graphical user interface comprising the reduced-size representation is a window.

4. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the reduced-size representation is created using a bilinear sampling technique.

5. A single computer system for running one or more software applications, wherein the software applications are suitable for generating a video output, the computer system comprising:

a host operating system suitable for displaying a graphical user interface;

multiple emulated virtual machines, containing respective guest operating systems running on the single computer system, being emulated by one or more emulator programs running on the host operating system;

a virtual video memory component configured to store video output of the guest operating systems;

wherein guest operating systems that operate in background mode are active;

wherein the host operating system is able to display for a user reduced-size continually updated representation of the video output of each virtual machine as thumbnail images, the thumbnail images generated from the video output stored in the video memory component, and the thumbnail images are generated at predetermined intervals while software applications are active; and

wherein the predetermined intervals are such that the thumbnail images are real-time representations of the video output from the active software applications.

6. A method for displaying reduced-size images of multiple virtual machines comprising:

providing a plurality of virtual machines and respective guest operating systems on a host computer that is a single computer, each virtual machine comprising a virtualized computer environment hosting a corresponding one of the guest operating systems on the host computer, where the operating systems hosted on the virtual machines are executing concurrently on the same host computer;

suspending one or more of the virtual machines, and saving to memory in a host computer system the image of each of the suspended virtual machines, wherein each suspended virtual machine includes a virtual video adaptor;

reading in at an emulator program from memory in the host computer system the images of the suspended virtual machines;

interpreting in the emulator program the contents of saved images of the suspended virtual machines based on video adaptor settings of the virtual video adaptors; and

displaying representations of the suspended virtual machines as thumbnail images the thumbnail images continually updated at predetermined intervals.

7. A method for displaying reduced-size images of virtual machines comprising:

providing a plurality of virtual machines and respective guest operating systems on a host computer that is a single computer, each virtual machine comprising a virtualized computer environment hosting a corresponding one of the guest operating systems on the host computer, where the operating systems hosted on the virtual machines are executing concurrently on the same host computer;

reading in from virtual video memory configured to store images of the virtual machines each virtual machine having a virtual video adaptor;

wherein guest operating systems that operate in background mode are active;

interpreting in the emulator program the contents of the images of the virtual machines based on video adaptor settings of the virtual video adaptors;

displaying reduced-size continually updated representations of the virtual machines, as thumbnail images, the thumbnail images generated from the images stored in the virtual video memory, and the thumbnail images are generated at predetermined intervals while software applications are active; and

wherein the predetermined intervals are such that the thumbnail images are real-time representations of the video output from the active software applications.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the step of displaying reduced-size representations of the virtual machines are performed on a computer system comprising:

the host operating system suitable for displaying a graphical user interface.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein one or more of the virtual video memory is VRAM.

10. A method of displaying images on a display coupled with a host computer, the method comprising:

providing a plurality of virtual machines and respective guest operating systems on the host computer that is a single computer, each virtual machine comprising a virtualized computer environment hosting a corresponding one of the guest operating systems on the host computer, each virtualized computer environment having a virtual video adaptor, where the operating systems hosted on the virtual machines are executing concurrently on the same host computer;

storing video output from the virtual video adaptors in virtual video memory components;

interpreting the video output from the virtual video adaptors based on video adaptor settings of the virtual video adaptors;

displaying a screen associated with a host operating system on the display together with thumbnail images generated from the interpreted video output from the virtual video adaptors, the thumbnail images are generated at predetermined intervals while software applications are active;

wherein the predetermined intervals are such that the thumbnail images are real-time representations of the video output from the active software applications; and

wherein the multiple guest operating systems that operate in a background mode are active.

11. The method according to claim 10, wherein the thumbnail images are based on image data from video RAMs of the virtual machines.

12. A method of displaying an image on a display coupled with a host computer, the method comprising:

providing a first virtual machine running a first guest operating system, the first virtual machine having a first virtual video adaptor, and a second virtual machine running a second guest operating system, the second virtual machine having a second virtual video adaptor, wherein both guest operating systems are configured for concurrent execution on the host computer that is a single computer;

storing video output from the first and second video adaptors in virtual video memory components;

interpreting the video output from the first virtual video adaptor based on video adaptor settings of the first virtual video adaptor and interpreting the video output from the second virtual video adaptor based on video adaptor settings of the second virtual video adaptor;

generating a first and second thumbnail based on the interpreted video output from the first and second virtual video adaptors, wherein the thumbnail images are generated at predetermined intervals while software applications are active; and

concurrently displaying, on the display, the first thumbnail of image output and the second thumbnail of image output, wherein the predetermined intervals are such that the thumbnail images are real-time representations of the video output from the active software applications; and

wherein guest operating systems that operate in a background mode are active.

13. The method according to claim 12, wherein first thumbnail is derived from video RAM of the first virtual machine, and the second thumbnail is derived from video RAM of the second virtual machine.

14. The method according to claim 12, further comprising allowing a user to interact with the thumbnails to control the virtual machines.

15. The method according to claim 12, wherein displaying of the thumbnails is accomplished by accessing video RAMs of the virtual machines.

16. The method according to claim 12, wherein the thumbnail images comprise reduced versions of images generated for display by the virtual machines.

17. The method according to claim 12, wherein the thumbnails reflect the video outputs of the virtual machines in real time.

18. A method comprising:

providing a plurality of virtual machines and respective guest operating systems on a host computer that is a single computer, each virtual machine comprising a ritualized computer environment hosting a corresponding one of the guest operating systems on the host computer, the virtual machines each comprising a virtual video adaptor having a video RAM where the operating systems hosted on the virtual machines are executing concurrently on the same host computer;

storing images from the video RAM in main memory of the computer;

accessing the video RAMs of the virtual machines to obtain images from the video RAMS;

generating thumbnail images of the images obtained from the video RAMs based on video adaptor settings of the virtual video adaptors, wherein the thumbnail images are generated at predetermined intervals while software applications are active; and

concurrently displaying the thumbnail images that are continually updated, wherein the predetermined intervals are such that the thumbnail images are real-time representations of the video output from the active software applications; and

wherein the guest operating systems that operate in a background mode are active.

19. The method according to claim 18, the method further comprising:

determining display modes corresponding to, respectively, the video RAMs of the virtual machines; and

generating the thumbnail images in accordance with the display modes.

20. The method according to claim 18, wherein the thumbnail images are displayed to reflect the video RAMs in real time.

21. A method, comprising:

providing a plurality of virtual machines and respective guest operating systems on a host computer that is a single computer, each virtual machine comprising a virtualized computer environment hosting a corresponding one of the guest operating systems on the host computer, each virtual machine having a virtual video adaptor, where the operating systems hosted on the virtual machines are executing concurrently on the same host computer;

storing image data received from the virtual video adaptors in virtual video memory components;

interpreting the image data received from the virtual video adaptors based on video adaptor settings of the virtual video adaptors;

displaying thumbnail images generated from the image data, wherein the thumbnail images are generated at predetermined intervals while software applications are active;

wherein the predetermined intervals are such that the thumbnail images are real-time representations of the video output from the active software applications; and

wherein the guest operating systems that operate in a background mode are active.

22. The method according to claim 21, wherein the displaying further comprises displaying the images in a graphical user interface that can be interacted with by a user to control execution of the virtual machines.