US 8,898,308 B2Granted

Methods, systems, and computer-readable mediums for configuring electronic messaging applications

AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation

InventorsDaniel P. Costenaro, Robert Novitskey, Erik Ashby, Bryan Starbuck, Harvey Rook

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Abstract

Methods, systems, and computer-readable mediums configure electronic messaging applications to communicate with a server storing messages to and/or from an electronic messaging account of a user. A method involves receiving an electronic message address and a password of the user as inputs, deriving server connection settings based on the electronic message address, and applying the server connection settings to the electronic messaging account. Another method involves receiving an electronic message address of the user and discovering the server connection settings for the electronic messaging account on a server having a designated protocol name as a server prefix name to assist in locating the server and having the server connection settings. The method also involves retrieving the server connection settings from a file provided by the server in response to locating the server having the designated name and applying the server connection settings to the electronic messaging account.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A computer-implemented method for configuring an electronic mail message application to communicate with a server storing electronic mail messages at least one of to and from an electronic mail message account of a user, the computer-implemented method being executed when computer-readable instructions, stored on at least one memory, are executed by at least one processing unit of a computing system, the computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving an electronic mail message address and a password from the electronic mail message application;
attempting to retrieve server connection settings from a designated server while asynchronously deriving the server connection settings based on the electronic mail message address, wherein the server connection settings are unknown to the electronic mail message application and are necessary for establishing a connection between the electronic mail message application and the server, and wherein deriving server connection settings further comprises:
determining a domain portion of the electronic mail message address, wherein the domain portion includes a domain name and a top level domain;
prepending one or more known server prefix names to a front end of the domain portion of the electronic mail message address to yield a server domain combination;
calculating one or more permutations of the server domain combination;
evaluating the one or more permutations of the server domain combination to determine the server connection settings, the evaluating comprising:
attempting to establish a connection using the one or more permutations of the server domain combination and the password;
and
detecting a connection to the server when at least one permutation of the server domain combination is successfully used with the password;
and
identifying the at least one successful permutation of the server domain combination as the server connection settings;
and
in response to detecting the connection to the server with the server connection settings, sending the server connection settings to the electronic mail message application.

10 more elements

A computer-implemented method for configuring an electronic mail message application to communicate with a server storing electronic mail messages for an electronic mail message account of a user, the computer-implemented method being executed when computer-readable instructions, stored on at least one memory, are executed by at least one processing unit of a computing system, the computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving an electronic mail message address, wherein the electronic mail message address comprises a plurality of ordered levels of intermediate domain names preceding a top level domain, the plurality of ordered levels beginning with a lowest level and ending with a highest level;
discovering server connection settings for the electronic mail message account on a designated server having a designated server name and having the server connection settings, wherein the server connection settings are necessary for establishing a connection between the electronic mail message application and the server, and wherein discovering the server connection settings further comprises:
generating a list of one or more designated servers, wherein generating the list comprises at least prepending the designated server name as a prefix to the one or more ordered levels of intermediate domain names preceding the top level domain to form an initial server domain name;
attempting to establish a connection to the designated server using the initial server domain name by sending a first HTTP Post command, wherein the HTTP Post command comprises at least the electronic mail message address;
in response to failing to establish a connection to the designated server, trimming a lowest level of the one or more ordered levels of intermediate domain names from the initial server domain name;
attempting to establish a connection to the designated server using the trimmed initial server domain name by sending a second HTTP Post command, wherein the second HTTP Post command comprises at least the electronic mail message address;
in response to establishing a connection to the designated server, retrieving the server connection settings from a file provided by the designated server;
and
sending the retrieved server connection settings to the electronic mail message application.

6 more elements

A computer storage medium, having computer-readable instructions stored thereon for configuring an electronic mail message application to communicate with a server storing electronic mail messages for an electronic mail message account of a user, the method comprising:

receiving an electronic mail message address, wherein the electronic mail message address comprises a plurality of ordered levels of intermediate domain names preceding a top level domain, the plurality of ordered levels beginning with a lowest level and ending with a highest level;
discovering server connection settings for the electronic mail message account on a designated server having a designated server name and having the server connection settings, wherein the server connection settings are necessary for establishing a connection between the electronic mail message application and the server, and wherein discovering the server connection settings further comprises:
generating a list of one or more designated servers, wherein generating the list comprises at least prepending the designated server name as a prefix to the one or more ordered levels of intermediate domain names preceding the top level domain to form an initial server domain name;
attempting to establish a connection to the designated server using the initial server domain name by sending a first HTTP Post command, wherein the HTTP Post command comprises at least the electronic mail message address;
in response to failing to establish a connection to the designated server, trimming a lowest level of the one or more ordered levels of intermediate domain names from the initial server domain name;
attempting to establish a connection to the designated server using the trimmed initial server domain name by sending a second HTTP Post command, wherein the second HTTP Post command comprises at least the electronic mail message address;
in response to establishing a connection to the designated server, retrieving the server connection settings from a file provided by the designated server;
and
sending the retrieved server connection settings to the electronic mail message application.

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 11/073,955Filed 7 Mar 2005
Published: US 2006/0200524 A17 Sep 2006
Granted: 25 Nov 2014
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification6 codes

G06Q 10/107
Office automation; Time management: computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
H04L 51/48
User-to-user messaging in packet-switching networks, transmitted according to store-and-forward or real-time protocols, e.g. e-mail: message…
H04L 69/02
Network arrangements, protocols or services independent of the application payload and not provided for in the other groups of this subclass:…
H04L 2101/37
Types of network names: e-mail addresses