EP0650120A2
Expired / Lapsed
EP
⏱️ 0.0 years remaining
Method and computer system for integrating a compression system with an operating system
Assignee: Microsoft Corp
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Filing: 1994-10-20
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Granted: —
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Expires: 2014-10-20
Abstract
Abstract The present invention provides a method in a computer system of integrating a compression system with an operating system. The computer system preferably comprises at least a memory device and one storage device. A user-supplied device driver is provided for storage devices that are not supported by the computer system to enable the computer system to communicate with the storage devices. In response to initialization of the computer system, the operating/compression system is loaded into the memory device and begins executing before any user-supplied device drivers are loaded into the memory device. Any compressed volume files located on the computer system are assigned drive letters at this time. When the user-supplied device drivers are loaded into the memory device, drive letters are assigned to the various storage devices. A drive letter conflict resolution scheme is provided to resolve conflicts that occur when the operating system attempts to assign a drive letter. The compression system assigns drive letters to compressed volume files (in the case where a compressed drive is created from free space on an existing drive) or to host drives (in the case where the contents of an existing drive are compressed).
Inventors
- 👤 Benjamin W. Slivka
Bibliographic Details
Application Number
—
Jurisdiction
EP
Data Source
google_patents
Last Synchronized
2026-11-01 16:37
CPC Classifications
G; G06; G06F; G06F9/00; G06F9/06; G06F9/44; G06F9/4401; G06F9/4411
Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 22
Claim 1
Independent Claim
98 words
A device driver for a computer system, the computer system having a operating system, the operating system having a standard device drivers and a non-standard device driver, the standard device driver being assigned a drive letter, the device driver comprising: initialization means, responsive to a request from the operating system, for initializing the device driver including means for assigning a drive letter to the device driver; and swapping means for, responsive to an assignment of a drive letter to a non-standard device driver, for swapping the drive letters assigned to the device driver and the non-standard device driver.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim
40 words
The device driver of claim 1 including means, responsive to a request from the operating system prior to loading the non-standard device driver, for storing a portion of the device driver at a memory location specified by the operating system.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
39 words
The device driver of claim 1 including means, responsive to a request from the operating system after loading the non-standard device driver, for storing a portion of the device driver at a memory location specified by the operating system.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
14 words
The device driver of claim 1 including identification means for identifying the device driver.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
23 words
The device driver of claim 4 wherein the identification means includes the ASCII characters",." stored at a location 12h within the device driver.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim
26 words
The device driver of claim 1 wherein the initialization means is invokable by the operating system through an entry point at location 14h of device driver.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim
24 words
The device driver of claim 1 wherein the initialization means and swapping means are stored as a computer program in a file named "DBLSPACE.BIN."
Claim 8
Independent Claim
131 words
A method of initializing a computer system to include a compression system, the computer system having a fixed volume and a removable volume, the method comprising the steps of: determining whether the removable volume is a boot volume from which to boot the computer system; and when the removable volume is the boot volume, loading the compression system from the removable volume; and executing a initialization function of the loaded compression system wherein when configuration information for the compression system resides on the removable volume, the compression system is initialized in accordance to configuration information of the removable volume, and when the configuration information for the compression system does not reside on the removable volume, the compression system is initialized in accordance to configuration information that resides on the fixed volume.
Claim 9
Dependent Claim
32 words
The method of claim 8 wherein the configuration information includes a name of a compressed volume file and an indication of a drive letter to be assigned to the compressed volume file.
Claim 10
Independent Claim
107 words
A method of initializing a computer system to include a subsystem, the computer system having a fixed volume and a removable volume, the method comprising the steps of when the removable volume is the boot volume, loading the subsystem from the removable volume; and executing an initialization function of the loaded subsystem wherein when configuration information for the subsystem resides on the removable volume, the subsystem is initialized in accordance to configuration information of the removable volume, and when the configuration information for the subsystem does not reside on the removable volume, the subsystem is initialized in accordance to configuration information that resides on the fixed volume.
Claim 11
Independent Claim
118 words
A method in a computer system of installing a compression system of an operating system, the method including the steps of: loading an initialization function of the compression system into memory of the computer system; executing the initialization function wherein the initialization function determines a number of drive letters to reserve for compressed volumes and determining which volumes of the compression system to mount; reserving the determined number of drive letters for the compression system; mounting the determined compressed volumes that can be mounted based on the installing of standard system device drivers; and after installing each non-standard device driver, mounting the determined compressed volumes that can be mounted based on the installing of the non-standard device driver.
Claim 12
Dependent Claim
31 words
The method of claim 11 including the step of after executing the initialization function, directing the compression system to relocate initialization code to a memory location determined by the operating system.
Claim 13
Dependent Claim
39 words
The method of claim 11 including the step of after completion of loading of non-standard device drivers, directing the compression system to locate a resident portion of the compression system at a memory location determined by the operating system.
Claim 14
Dependent Claim
36 words
The method of claim 11 including the step of directing the compression system to locate a resident portion of the compression system at a memory location determined by a memory manager installed by the operating system.
Claim 15
Independent Claim
98 words
A method in a compression system for installing the compression system on a computer system, the computer system having an operating system, the operating system having standard and non-standard device drivers, the method comprising the steps of: determining a number of drive letters to reserve for compressed volumes; determining which compressed volumes to mount; mounting the determined compressed volumes that can be mounted based on the installing of standard system device drivers; and after installation of a non-standard device driver, mounting the determined compressed volumes that can be mounted based on the installation of the non-standard device driver.
Claim 16
Dependent Claim
25 words
The method of claim 15 including the step of relocating a portion to the compression system to a memory location indicated by the operating system.
Claim 17
Independent Claim
112 words
A method in a computer system for resolving conflicts between drive letter reserved for a compression system and drive letters expected by non-standard device drivers, the computer system having an operating system for directing the initialization of the computer system, the method comprising the steps of: reserving a range of drive letters for the compression system, the range of drive letters extending from a first drive letter through a reserved number of drive letters; assigning a drive letter to a non-standard device driver; adjusting the reserved range of drive letters to extend from the drive letter after the first drive letter; and reassigning the first drive letter to the non-standard device driver.
Claim 18
Dependent Claim
29 words
The method of claim 17 including the steps of reassigning a volume previously assigned to the first drive letter to the last drive letter in the adjusted reserved range.
Claim 19
Independent Claim
120 words
A method in a computer system for installing a device driver, the method including the steps of: installing a standard device driver into the computer system; after installing the standard device driver, loading the device driver into memory of the computer system, the device driver being loaded from a file with a predefined name and having an initialization function and a swapping function; invoking the initialization function wherein the initialization function assigns a drive letter for the device driver; installing a non-standard device driver into the computer system, the non-standard device driver being assigned a device letter; and invoking a swapping function wherein the swapping function swaps the drive letters assigned to the device driver and the non-standard device driver.
Claim 20
Independent Claim
108 words
A method in a computer system for installing a compression system, the computer system having a standard ad a non-standard device driver, the non-standard device driver being configure to expect a predefined driver letter assignment, the method including the steps of: loading a compression system device driver; assigning the predefined drive letter to the compression system device driver; installing the non-standard device driver and assigning a driver letter other than the predefined drive letter to the non-standard device driver; and swapping the driver letters assigned to the non-standard device driver and the compression system device driver so that the non-standard device driver is assigned the predefined drive letter.
Claim 21
Independent Claim
84 words
A method for initializing a computer system, the computer system having a standard device driver, a compression system device driver, and a non-standard device driver, the method comprising the steps of: installing the standard device driver into the computer system; installing the compression system device driver into the computer system; after installing the compression system device driver, reading configuration information specifying that the non-standard device driver is to be installed into the computer system; and installing the non-standard device driver into the computer system.
Claim 22
Dependent Claim
28 words
The method of claim 21 wherein the step of installing the non-standard device driver includes the step of accessing a compression system through the compression system device driver.
References Cited (Backward Citations)
US5455577A
Cited
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