Device and method for releasing an in-memory executable image from its dependence on a backing store
US6530077B1 · kind B1 · utility
Assignee
Inventor
Key dates
| Filing date | Sep 15, 1999 |
| Grant date | Mar 4, 2003 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Sep 15, 2019 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06F3/0601
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A Windows NT partitioning program partitions a storage device in Windows NT boot mode (i.e., after the Windows NT kernel loads device drivers and before the Session Manager loads the Windows NT user interface). In this mode, the partitioning program is capable of corrupting its own backing store—a Windows NT executable file stored on the storage device—through the partitioning process. Such corruption would generally lead to execution errors in the partitioning program when code or data from the corrupted executable file is paged into the program's in-memory executable image. To avoid such errors, the working set allocated to the executable image is expanded to accommodate all the pageable Windows NT program sections in the executable file. Each pageable program section is then locked into the executable image. As a result, the entire partitioning program is resident in the executable image, so no paging is necessary from the corrupted executable file into the executable image, and any possible execution errors resulting from the corruption of the executable file are avoided.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.