Patent ID: 7610322

Claim:
One or more computer-readable storage media storing computer executable instructions, the media comprising: a handle configured to facilitate a software agent's reference to a particular computing resource, the particular computing resource being configured to be shared by more than one software agents within a computing environment, wherein: the more than one software agents include operating system modules and runtime modules; a handle administrator and a safe handle administrator interact with one another to safeguard the handle from an operating system environment in a runtime environment the handle administrator generating handles to be allocated to operating system modules and the safe handle administrator generating handles to be allocated to runtime modules; and a counter associated with the handle and configured to store a tabulation of a number of software agents currently using the handle to facilitate reference to the particular computing resource; one or more status flags configured to indicate when the counter has reached “0”; another one or more status flags configured to: record when an expedited handle release has been requested by a software agent not currently using the handle; and indicate whether the handle is available for clean-up, wherein when the handle is not available for clean-up then the expedited handle release is refuse; wherein the one or more status flags and another one or more status flags together indicate whether to release the handle.