Managing Removal and Modification of Installed Programs on a Computer Device
AssigneeAvecto Limited
InventorsJohn Goodridge, Richard De Mellow
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Removal or modification of an installed program on a computer device is requested by a calling process in a user account which itself may or may not have administrator privileges. An agent, cooperating with an operating system, intercepts a call to remove or modify the installed program made by the calling process prior to reaching an uninstaller component of the operating system. The agent determines whether or not to allow the remove or modify request and, if permitted, provides a proxy process through which the requested action to remove or modify the installed program is performed.
Claims20
A method of removing or modifying an installed program on a computer device, the method comprising:
- intercepting, by an agent installed on the computer device, a requested action to remove or modify the installed program as initiated by a calling process associated with a current user account on the computer device and prior to reaching an installer component of an operating system of the computer device;
- and
- evaluating, by the agent on the computer device, the requested action to remove or modify, and where permitted by the agent, providing a proxy process as a proxy for the calling process and performing the requested action to remove or modify the installed program through the proxy process.
A computer device comprising:
- a memory;
- and
- processing circuitry configured to:
- perform operations to manage removal or modification of an installed program on a computer device, the operations comprising:
- intercepting, by an agent installed on the computer device, a requested action to remove or modify the installed program as initiated by a calling process associated with a current user account on the computer device and prior to reaching an installer component of an operating system of the computer device;
- evaluating, by the agent on the computer device, the requested action to remove or modify, and where permitted by the agent, providing a proxy process as a proxy for the calling process and performing the requested action to remove or modify the installed program through the proxy process.
A tangible non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having recorded thereon instructions which, when executed by processing circuitry of a computer device, configures the computer device to perform operations to manage removal or modification of an installed program on the computer device, the operations comprising:
- intercepting, by an agent installed on the computer device, a requested action to remove or modify the installed program as initiated by a calling process associated with a current user account on the computer device and prior to reaching an installer component of an operating system of the computer device;
- evaluating, by the agent on the computer device, the requested action to remove or modify, and where permitted by the agent, providing a proxy process as a proxy for the calling process and performing the requested action to remove or modify the installed program through the proxy process.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.