Expert software diagnostic tool
AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation
InventorsNelamangala Srinivas, Rajat Mishra
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Abstract
An expert diagnostic agent for use in diagnosing intermittent and/or difficult to reproduce software failures in computing devices is disclosed. The expert diagnostic agent gathers data about the operating system of a computing device and a plurality of software components coupled to the computer operating system; applies rules to the data to identify software failures; invokes tools as needed to attempt to correct the software failures; and reports information about software failures. The expert diagnostic agent may be invoked directly or activated by certain events in computer system.
Claims20
A method of diagnosing software failures in a computing device that manifest themselves when the computing device executes instructions, said method comprising:
- (a) gathering data reflecting the state of the operating system of the computing device;
- (b) gathering data reflecting the state of software components coupled to the operating system;
- (c) retrieving rules suitable for identifying the cause of software failures;
- and
- (d) applying said rules to said gathered data to identify software failures in said computing device.
An expert diagnostic agent for diagnosing software failures in a computing device when the computing device executes instructions, said expert diagnostic agent comprising:
- (a) a system analyzer coupled to the operating system of a computing device for gathering data reflecting the state of the operating system of said computing device;
- (b) a plurality of component analyzers, each of said component analyzers coupled to related software components of said computing device for gathering data reflecting the state of said components;
- and
- (c) a rules database coupled to said system analyzer and said component analyzers for causing said system analyzer and said component analyzers to gather data and for analyzing said gathered data to identify software failures in said computing device.
A computer-readable medium, including computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause a computing device to:
- (a) gather data about the operating system of the computing device;
- (b) gather data about the operation of a plurality of software components controlled by the computer operating system;
- (c) retrieve rules from a rules database;
- (d) apply said rules to said gathered data;
- and
- (e) infer the state of the computing device from the results of the application of said rules to said gathered data.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.