Patent ID: 7454762
Filing Date: 2008-11-18
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method comprising: detecting a reference by an application for an operating system (OS) service that is currently undefined by the OS or currently unavailable within the OS, said detecting including: (a) issuing a call to an Undefined Service Response Utility (USRU) executing on a processor of the data processing system and which automatically returns a response to the application indicating that the OS service is not currently available within the OS and which triggers a status of the reference as resolved, wherein the USRU utility is a separate functional component from an application programming interface associated with the OS; and (b) returning to the application a message indicating that the referenced OS service is not currently available within the OS and OS kernel extension; and (c) enabling the application to continue processing beyond the reference, with the message accepted as a response to the reference, such that the forward progress of the application continues even when the referenced OS service is unavailable or not yet defined; mapping the reference for the OS service to the USRU, wherein future references to said OS service are automatically sent to the USRU until an OS update occurs; recording the mapping of the reference; and in response to a receipt of a subsequent reference for that OS service while the OS service remains undefined or unavailable, automatically responding via the USRU to the subsequent reference for the OS service, whereby the USRU provides the application with a response indicating that the requested OS service is not yet available; whereby non-availability of the requested OS service does not result in one or more of a failure condition, a system shutdown, or a system reboot.