Patent Application
20140040870
The present invention is related to computer software, and more specifically to computer software for installing programs over a network.
Computer software may provide productivity or other benefits to a user of the computer software. However, potential users of computer software may be reluctant to use, or even try, computer software because of the overhead involved in the acquisition of the computer software. Users who could benefit from the productivity enhancements or other benefits of the software do not receive them, because they may be reluctant to overcome the hurdles involved in acquiring new software.
One such hurdle is the installation process itself. Many computer programs require the user to perform a complicated installation process before the software can be installed. If the computer software only runs in an environment that is not installed on the potential user's computer system, the potential user must locate the environment, install it, and then install the computer software. For example, if a user does not have the proper operating system that is a prerequisite of the latest software application, the user must locate the operating system, install it, and then install the new computer software. Installing the environment and/or the software can require the user to perform multiple steps, such as downloading the software to a location, remembering the location at which the software was downloaded, running the software, and then answering a number of questions about how and where to install the software. All of this can be a significant inconvenience to the user, and the user may simply abandon efforts to obtain the benefits originally-desired computer of the software when confronted with these issues. The problem becomes even greater when the user considers that the investment in time and energy to install the software and its environment are very real, but the potential benefits to be obtained are unproven and might not ever be realized by that user.
In some cases, the mere determination as to whether the potential user's computer system has the proper environment required by the computer software may itself represent overhead to the installation process that is sufficient to cause the user to avoid installing new software. For example, if the computer software requires a particular minimum processor speed to operate, the potential user may not know whether his or her computer system has a processor operating at that speed, or the equivalent processor. The identification as to whether the potential user's computer system has the minimum required environment may be more trouble than the user is willing to undergo to attempt to obtain the as yet unproven benefits promised by the software. The potential user may not even have any idea how to go about making the determination as to whether his or her computer system meets the minimum requirements of the software, and this problem can act as a further obstacle to installing the software.
Still another obstacle may be the problem of locating a place to purchase or license the software. A potential user may read about the software on the manufacturer's web site, but the manufacturer may not sell or license the software from that web site, requiring the user to search around for a retailer of that software.
Additionally, the user may be reluctant to pay the cost of the software. The cost of the software may include markups from each of a distributor and the retailer, which make the price of the software more expensive than the user can justify paying for software whose benefits to the user are not proven. If the software is not available in a retail store the user trusts, the user may be reluctant to purchase, license or otherwise obtain the software from an otherwise unknown and un-trusted Web site.
Because of the time and trouble and the involved in performing these activities, and the perceived risk of using an unknown source, a user may be extremely reluctant to install software whose benefits are unproven. As a result, many potential benefits of computer software are never achieved because the potential user is reluctant to go through the overhead of the installation process.
The overhead for the user is not the only reason that some software is not distributed. There is also overhead on the part of the software developer that can prevent some software from ever being made available in the first place. A new software manufacturer is required to set up an infrastructure for distribution (including packaging design, manufacturing, retailing and distribution agreements and other overhead) that may be too much effort for the developer of a niche application or one for which there is uncertain demand. The developer could attempt to market it from a web site, but the effort involved in directing sufficient customer traffic to the web site could be too expensive (e.g. due to advertising and public relations costs) to make the effort worthwhile, particularly for a new software developer. Furthermore, the software developer might be required to assist potential users with the installation process, including the determination as to whether the potential user's computer system contains the proper environment for the computer software. All of this overhead can prevent software that can provide benefits to a user from ever being developed in the first place.
What is needed is a system and method for distributing software that can identify whether a potential user's computer system contains the proper environment for the software, can automatically install the proper environment on the user's computer system if it does not have it, can automatically install the software for the user once the user's system contains the proper environment, and can direct potential customers to obtain the product in a manner that potential users trust, without requiring the developer to employ a distributor and retailer and their corresponding markups, while reducing the support the developer is required to provide to potential users of the computer software.
A system and method detects whether a user's computer system has the environment required to run a program desired by the user, and if not, obtains and installs the environment. The system and method obtains the program and installs it. The system and method can list the programs available for the environment and allow the user to obtain and install any such program from within the environment, increasing the chance that the user will trust the process, and without requiring a separate retail distribution process.
The present invention may be implemented as computer software on a conventional computer system. Referring now to
In one embodiment, each computer system 150 is a conventional SUN MICROSYSTEMS ULTRA 10 workstation running the SOLARIS operating system commercially available from SUN MICROSYSTEMS, Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., a PENTIUM-compatible personal computer system such as are available from DELL COMPUTER CORPORATION of Round Rock, Tex. running a version of the WINDOWS operating system (such as 95, 98, Me, XP, NT or 2000) commercially available from MICROSOFT Corporation of Redmond Wash. or a Macintosh computer system running the MACOS or OPENSTEP operating system commercially available from APPLE COMPUTER CORPORATION of Cupertino, Calif. and the NETSCAPE browser commercially available from NETSCAPE COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION of Mountain View, Calif. or INTERNET EXPLORER browser commercially available from MICROSOFT above, although other systems may be used.
Referring now to
Client computer system 202 is a conventional computer system, such as a personal computer, mobile telephone, PDA or other computing device such as was described above with respect to
In one embodiment, all communication into or out of client computer system 202 over network 220 is made via input/output 208 of communication interface 210. Communication interface 210 is coupled via input/output 208 to network 220, which may be any conventional networks such as the Internet or a local area network or both. In one embodiment, communication interface 210 is a conventional communication interface that supports Ethernet, TCP/IP and/or other conventional communication protocols.
Communication interface 210 sends the request to web server 230, which may be any conventional web server. Web server 230 sends a response that contains a web page file. Communication interface 210 provides the web page file to browser 216, which stores the web page file into storage 222 via operating system 214. All files retrieved as described herein may be stored into storage 222, which may be memory or disk storage as described above.
In one embodiment, the web page file includes or references a file containing computer code, and browser 216 also retrieves and stores this file into storage 222. The file containing computer code may include a conventional Flash movie file specified by Macromedia, Inc., at the web site, Macromedia.com and such specification is incorporated by reference in its entirety. Although a Flash movie file is used herein, any computer code that can cause a computer system to perform the functions described herein may be used according to the present invention. (It is noted that, in spite of the fact that the file is referred to as containing computer code, other files described herein also contain computer code.)
In one embodiment, this additional file containing computer code has a type that may be represented by the extension of the filename of the file, and browser 216 attempts to locate a plug in to the browser that is registered for the type of the file. If it does not locate the file, browser 216 requests it from code executor server 240. In the case of a Flash movie file, the plug in is the Flash Player product commercially available from Macromedia, Inc., of San Francisco, Calif. Code executor server 240 supplies a code executor 218, which may be a plug in to browser 216 or another product that is capable of executing code in the file containing computer code as described herein, such as the Flash Player product described at Macromedia.com, and such description is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. Code executor 218 installs itself, by registering to operating system 214, browser 216, or both, and one or both of these 214, 216 associate code executor 218 with one or more types of files that code executor 218 identifies as being of any number of one or more types it is able to process. Although code executor 218 is described herein as a plug in to a browser, other items that can execute code as described herein may be used by the present invention.
Because the web page received from web server 230 contains the file containing computer code having a name corresponding to the type registered by code executor 218, browser 216 causes the file containing the computer code to be executed by code executor 218. In one embodiment, the computer code is Flash action script and other Flash movie code that is described in the help files of the Flash MX 2004 authoring tool, and such description is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
The file containing computer code and retrieved from web server 230 is shown in
In one embodiment, other code 314 directs code executor 218 to check if code executor 218 itself is at least at a version specified in other code 314. If not, other code 314 directs code executor 218 to instruct the user that a newer version of code executor 218 is available and asks if the user wishes to retrieve it. If the user assents, other code 314 directs code executor 218 to download the latest version of code executor 218 and install it. Code executor 218 performs such instructions by downloading the latest version from code executor server 240 and registers it to browser 216, operating system 214, or both and may prompt the user to restart browser 216 or client computer system 202. If the user assents to the prompt, code executor 218 directs operating system 214 to restart browser 216 or client computer system 202 and operating system 214 complies. The user may then begin the process of retrieving the web page again. This time, code executor will be the correct version.
In one embodiment, environment instruction set 310 contains one or more instructions that instruct code executor 218 to check client computer system 202 for the proper environment and install it if necessary. Exhibit A illustrates representative code for checking to see if the Central product is installed and if not, to install it. Exhibit A also contains code and instructions regarding the monitoring of the installation process. More detail on coding for Central may be found at macromedia.com/devnet/central/ on the World Wide Web. In one embodiment, the program is a program that runs under the Central environment commercially available from Macromedia, Inc. and described at the web site of Macromedia.com and the environment is a version, or the latest version, of the Central product commercially available from Macromedia, Inc. An environment according to the present invention may include any one or more computer hardware or software product in other embodiments. The specifications of the proper environment may be provided in environment instruction set 310 or may be inherent in it. For example, Central may always be the environment.
In response to the instructions in environment instruction set 310, code executor 218 scans client computer system 202 for the proper environment using conventional hardware and/or software discovery techniques. For example, to determine whether the Central product is installed, code executor 218 queries operating system 214 to identify whether one or more files corresponding to the Central product or other environment have been stored in a subdirectory in which such files would have been stored if the product was installed.
If code executor 218 determines that the proper environment is installed on client computer system 202, code executor 218 executes program instruction set 312 in the file 300 it is executing. Otherwise, before executing program instruction set 312, and under the directions set forth in environment instruction set 310, code executor 218 retrieves (or orders) the proper environment via network 220, downloads it, and installs it as will now be described.
In one embodiment, to retrieve the proper environment, code executor 218 retrieves from environment supply server 242 the file shown in
File 320 contains code in a set of one or more instructions 332 describing a user interface, or the user interface strings that can be used in a predefined user interface that code executor 218 contains internally, or retrieves from code executor server 240, or environment supply server 242 in response to a command in instructions 332, that informs the user that the environment is required to install the software and prompts the user for permission to install it. The user interface may contain user interface elements such as text messages, push buttons and the like, as well as code that can be executed by code executor 218, for example, all in the form of a Flash movie or Flash movie clip. Code executor 218 executes the code and displays the user interface, which may contain a push button to allow the user to indicate agreement to install the environment. If the user so indicates using the user interface displayed, code executor 218 executes the one or more instructions in retrieve/install instruction set 334 that instruct code executor 218 to retrieve the environment or those portions of the environment that may have been identified when code executor 218 scanned client computer system 202. (File 320 may contain other code 330, 336 in addition to the sets 332, 334 described herein)
Code executor 218 obtains the environment or portion thereof from environment supply server 242, and installs the environment, for all, or any portion, of the environment that is software. The location of the environment may be specified in file 300 or file 320, or it may be specified internally as part of code executor 218.
If hardware is necessary for the proper environment, in one embodiment, code executor 218 may order it from environment supply server 242 for delivery to the user, and provide instructions for its installation into client computer system 202.
Once the proper environment has been installed, code executor 218 may attempt to redetect the environment to confirm that the proper environment has been installed by reexecuting some or all of environment instruction set 310 or it may skip such redetection. If the proper environment has been installed, code executor 218 executes instruction set 312.
In one embodiment, the proper environment consists of any or all of a boot loader, master controller, agent manager, application manager and console manager described in one of the related applications. These items together are included as the conventional Central product commercially available from Macromedia.com, although other environments may be used according to the present invention.
Instruction set 312 contains one or more instructions that instruct code executor 218 to obtain the program that was initially desired by the user. In one embodiment, the program consists of any or all of an agent, an application and one or more pods as described in the related application. Each of these items may consist of one or more files or a portion of a file, and all files are specified by a manifest, having an address on manifest server 244 specified by program retrieval instruction set 312.
Code executor 218 retrieves the manifest from manifest server 244 via communication interface 210, network 220, and optionally, browser 216 as specified by program retrieval instruction set 312. In one embodiment, the manifest is an XML file that specifies the location of the one or more files of the program.
Code executor 218, under direction of program retrieval instruction set 312, then parses the manifest to identify the location of the one or more files that make up the program. In one embodiment, the files for a given program are located on one or more files server 246 that is different from manifest server 244, however, in another embodiment, files server 246 and manifest server 244 are the same set of one or more servers. In one embodiment, for security purposes, code executor 218 enforces a rule that requires the manifest and all files for the corresponding program to come from a single internet domain to ensure that a third party does not alter the manifest to cause unauthorized files to be retrieved and installed. Under the direction of program retrieval instruction set 312, code executor 218 retrieves the one or more files into storage 222, and then installs the program corresponding to the files. In one embodiment, installing the program involves copying or logically moving (by renaming) the some or all of the files for the program retrieved from files server 246 to a location on storage 222 that the environment described above can access, although other embodiments may involve other conventional file installation activities, such as decompressing them or registering them via a registry.
Under control of program retrieval instruction set 312, code executor 218 then executes or directs operating system 214 to execute, the program installed using the environment. In one embodiment, the program is one or more Flash movies executed by the agent manager, application shell manager and console manager, (each including a Flash movie player, modified as described in the related application, and its related Flash movie), operating under the direction of a master controller (which includes a Flash movie player and its related Flash movie) as described in the related applications. Execution of the program may be performed by directing operating system to run a boot loader described in the related application, and providing the name or other identifier of the program to the boot loader. The boot loader provides the name or other identifier of the program to the master controller, which causes the program to be executed as described in the related application.
Servers 230-246 may include any number conventional web servers, and some servers 230-246 may be shared. Servers 230, 244, 246 may be operated by, or on behalf of, the same commercial entity, but one that is different from the one or more commercial entities that operate servers 240, 242, or on whose behalf such servers 240, 242 are operated. In one embodiment different programs may be retrieved from different manifest servers 244 and different files servers 246. Different web servers 230 may be used to initiate the process for different programs. Although two of each such servers 230, 244, 246 are shown in the figure, any number of sets of such servers 230, 244, 246, may be used, and as noted above each set of servers 230, 244, 246 may be combined to a fewer number of servers.
It is noted that the only user intervention involved is the request for the original web page and an optional confirmation to install the environment if it is not already installed. All of the other steps can occur without user intervention, although additional user intervention steps may be involved at any point in the process.
In one embodiment, certain programs are installed with the environment. One such program contains an application and an agent that operates under control of code executor 218 as described in one of the related applications. The agent retrieves from environment supply server 242 a list of available programs, and for each such program, a description thereof, and a link that enables the program to be downloaded. Each item on the list may be registered by developers or distributors of applications, along with the URL or other location on manifest server 244 from where the file 300 containing computer code may be located. The application displays the list and when the link is clicked, the agent retrieves the file containing the computer code as described above, and the installation process proceeds as described above, under the direction of that file. The file need not contain environment instruction set 310, because the environment is already installed. In one embodiment, instead of the file containing computer code, the URL in the list contains a URL to the manifest for the program in manifest server 244, and the agent provides code executor 218 with the instructions that would have been in the file 300 to start the installation of the program by retrieving the manifest, and continuing as described above. The agent and application contain instructions for performing these functions and are stored in storage 222 and executed by code executor 218. In such embodiment, code executor 218 operates as the agent manager, consisting of a Flash player, modified as described in the related applications, and operating under the direction of its associated movie file, and application shell manager, consisting of a Flash player, modified as described in the related applications, and operating under the direction of its associated movie file, as described in the related applications.
Step 412 may involve checking an existing plug-in or other means of executing the code file for a version identifier that is at least as high as that specified in the code file, prompting the user to retrieve a newer version, and receiving assent from the user. Step 414 may involve retrieving a newer version of the plug in or other means of executing the code file, installing it, prompting the user to restart the browser or the computer system and restarting the browser or computer system, with the user beginning again at step 410, as indicated by the dashed line in the Figure, or the method continues at step 416.
At step 416, the computer system on which the program is to be installed (which may be the same computer system from which the request was generated in step 410) is checked to determine whether it has the proper environment to run the program as described above. If the computer system has the proper environment 418, the method continues at step 422 and otherwise 418, one or more servers that can be used to obtain the environment are identified, and the environment (or whatever portion may not reside on the computer system) is obtained over a network using the one or more servers as described above, and the environment (or such portion) is installed 420 and the method continues at step 422 in one embodiment, or step 416 in another embodiment illustrated by the dashed line in the Figure. Step 420 may include retrieving a file containing a user interface and instructions used to prompt the user to request permission to install the environment as described above, and/or a file containing the text of the prompts as described above. Step 420 may include receiving and installing one or more programs that are supplied with the environment, such as a program that performs steps 450-456 as described above.
At step 422, the client computer system onto which the program is to be installed is optionally checked to determine whether the program is already installed. If so 424, the program is run 432 and otherwise 424, a manifest describing the location of the one or more files that make up the program is located as described above and the manifest is obtained 426 over a network and the method continues at step 428. In one embodiment, no check is made to determine whether the program is already installed, and so steps 422 and 424 are not performed, and step 426 follows step 420 unconditionally.
The manifest is parsed to identify the one or more locations of the one or more files corresponding to the program 428. Some or all of the files described by the manifest are requested and received 430 over a network as described above and optionally installed. The program corresponding to the one or more files retrieved in step 428 is run 432 in one embodiment, although in another embodiment illustrated by the dashed line in the Figure, step 422 follows step 430 instead of step 432 directly following step 430.
Once the environment is installed, any of the installed programs may be run as described in step 432 and the related applications. In one embodiment, the program is a program that lists programs available for installation and allows the user to have them installed with a single click of a button. If such program is run as in step 432, a list of available programs is requested 450 from a server over a network. The programs may have been developed by various commercial entities, descriptions of which are stored in the server. The list of programs and details about the programs, such as its developer, any length of a free trial period, and the price of the program is received from the server and displayed to the user in a manner that allows the user to select a program from the list 452. A selection is received from the user 454 corresponding to one of the programs on the list. Step 426 (or 422 in one embodiment) may follow step 454, with the location of the manifest for each program being contained in the list, and the manifest (and its location) of the selected program being used in step 426. Alternatively, step 456 may be performed between steps 454 and either step 426 or step 422, with step 456 involving retrieving a file containing code as described above from a location specified for that program on the list received in step 452.
Referring now to
Environment permission retriever manager 516 downloads environment permission manager 518, environment retriever 520 and environment installer 522 and signals environment permission manager 518. When signaled, environment permission manager 518 causes instructions to be provided to the user that some or all of the environment is required and prompts the user to install it. If the user responds in a manner that indicates that permission to install the environment is granted, environment permission manager 518 signals environment retriever 520, which retrieves the environment (and may also retrieve certain programs that appear to the user as preinstalled), stores it into environment storage 522, and signals environment installer 522, which installs the environment as environment 540 and installs any such preinstalled-appearing programs, such as agent 550 and application 552 and signals program check manager 526 or manifest retriever 528.
Optional program check manager 526, when signaled, attempts to locate in program files storage 534 the program having the name specified in browser storage 512 that was retrieved as part of the code file. If the program is located, program check manager 526 signals program operator 538 and otherwise signals manifest retriever 528.
When signaled, manifest retriever 528 retrieves the location of the manifest from browser storage 512, retrieves the manifest from that location, stores it into manifest storage and signals program files retriever 532. Program files retriever 532 retrieves the program files corresponding to the manifest, stores them into program files storage 534 and signals optional program files installer 536 in one embodiment, or program files operator 538 in another embodiment. When signaled, program files installer 536 installs the program files in program files storage 534, for example, by copying them or renaming them into another area of program files storage 534. Program files installer 536 signals program operator 538, which retrieves the name of the program from browser storage 512 or manifest storage 530 and runs the program, for example, by signaling environment 540 with the program name as described above. Program operator 538 may be part of environment 540.
Environment 540 may run any program, including the program that contains agent 550 that retrieves from a server the list of programs that can be installed, provides the list to an application 552, which displays it to the user, allows a selection to be made, and then provides the location of a file containing code to manifest retriever 528, to initiate the installation process of the program selected.
Some or all of elements 514-552 may make up code executor 218 of
In order to display this dialog, the Flash player first queries a cgi file on macromedia.com, supplying the name of the
product and retrieving an xml file containing strings to display in the dialog. Eg:
query—https://www.macromedia.com/bin/flashdownload.cgi?product=central&what=descr
returns—https://www.macromedia.com/pubtcentral/core/CentralDownload.xml
If the user ok's the install dialog, the Flash player queries the cgi file again, getting the file to download, based on the platform/OS.
During the install process, actionscript in our browser movie can poll periodically until the install is complete and Central is running.
Once that is done, we want to install our Central application.
We create a LocalConnection object in our Flash movie, which is used to talk to a LocalConnection object in Central (LocalConnection is an actionscript object enabling communication between, say, two different Flash movies in different browser windows, or a Flash movie in a browser and one in the standalone player, etc. It basically works by a Flash player instance writing information into shared memory, and checking that memory on idle to see if any messages have written for it).
This application claims the benefit of attorney docket number 1414, U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 60/556,721 entitled, “Method and Apparatus for Communicating Information Over a Network” filed on Mar. 26, 2004 by Kevin Lynch, David Calaprice, Ethan Malasky and Tracy Stampfli; attorney docket number 1415, U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 60/556,595 entitled, “Method and Apparatus for Installing One or More Programs and At Least a Portion of Their Environment” filed on Mar. 26, 2004 by Kevin Lynch, Tracy Stampfli, Peter Grandmaison and Rebekah Hash; and attorney docket number 1416, U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 60/556,966 entitled, “Method and Apparatus for Updating One or More Programs and Their Environment” filed on Mar. 26, 2004 by Tracy Stampfli and Rebekah Hash, each having the same assignee as this application and each is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. This application is related to attorney docket number 1464, U.S. application serial number AA/AAA,AAA entitled, “System and Method for Communicating Information Over a Network” filed on Mar. 25, 2005 by Kevin Lynch, David Calaprice, Ethan Malasky and Tracy Stampfli; and attorney docket number 1466, application serial number BB/BBB,BBB entitled, “System and Method for Updating One or More Programs and Their Environment” filed on Mar. 25, 2005 by Tracy Stampfli and Rebekah Hash, each having the same assignee as this application and each is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60556721 | Mar 2004 | US | |
| 60556595 | Mar 2004 | US | |
| 60556966 | Mar 2004 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 11089699 | Mar 2005 | US |
| Child | 12778080 | US |
