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Pre-Grant Publication Number: 20070162625

Method and apparatus for delivering device drivers

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Discussion (16)

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CLAIM 00001

<claim-text> A method of delivering a device driver to an operating system executing on a computer platform, the method comprising: <claim-text>during booting of the operating system, identifying a first device for which a device driver is needed; </claim-text><claim-text>requesting the device driver from a service processor installed on the computer platform, wherein the service processor comprises a storage configured to store one or more device drivers; and </claim-text><claim-text>delivering the device driver to the operating system without intervention by a user. </claim-text></claim-text>

Comments

Rakesh Parimi (about 1 year ago)

Regarding Claim 00001
I was recently trying to install an old web cam onto Windows XP - and it turned out that the device driver on the installation CD was only supported for XP SP2. I think this suggested new method of delivering device drivers will come in handy in such cases - if the suggested technique can really work. There are obvious dependencies on the Operating System, XP SP2 in this case, being able to use advanced device driver find (e.g. on network) and then download it (what about security, network firewall). Do I want it to be installed automatically? It that a reliable piece of software? What about security loopholes? Is it hack proof? The idea maybe a nice to have one, but the disclosure is not illustrating the exact technique to be used. In a way it is incomplete. more...

CLAIM 00001

Comments

Todd Gatts (about 1 year ago)

For me, Claim 1 seems to hinge on whether operating systems and device drivers are somehow different enough to make a relatively common interaction into a novel one. The process of detecting a missing piece of software or a down-level pieces of software, downloading the needed software, and restarting or continuing happens daily. Firefox, Windows updates, Java, Flash -- each of these detect, download, and install. In addition, many of these installations will occur without user interaction, if the user wishes. Why is an OS at boot time something different than a browser? Why is a device driver different than a Flash plug-in or a Java Virtual Machine? more...

Alex Young (about 1 year ago)

Am I reading the claims wrong, then? I read Claim 1 and the background to say that the drivers are being supplied by hardware (a "support processor"), not software. If that's the case, then we need to look for a device with a USB port that can handle different types of interface device by loading firmware on demand from a chip external to the main device CPU. That's the closest analogy I can think of. more...

CLAIM 00006

<claim-text> The method of <claim-ref idref='CLM-00001'>claim 1</claim-ref>, wherein said storage comprises solid-state memory having a capacity of at least 32 megabytes. </claim-text>

Comments

Alex Young (about 1 year ago)

It doesn't matter. The point of this invention (as I read it - I stand to be corrected) is to allow you to run an old OS on top of a hypervisor on special hardware, so that the hypervisor asks a coprocessor for the right driver for that OS / hardware combination. The hypervisor basically acts as a multiplexer for the device drivers, and lets you transparently run more than one old OS side-by-side with the service processor (claimed as a solid-state storage area of at least 32MB in Claim 6, so I'm sure they've got flash in mind) providing the correct device driver on boot of that guest OS. The best place I can think of for prior art as far as driver loading is concerned would be the Xen source code, but I'm pretty sure there's no capability there for storing drivers to flash. I'll take a look, anyway, something might show up. more...

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