Patent ID: 7478237

Claim:
In a computing device that includes a plurality of user mode applications, a kernel mode application, and a file, a computer-implemented method of sequentially providing more than one user mode applications with access to data in the file, the method comprising: (a) creating a common interface for the plurality of user mode applications at said computing device that includes said kernel mode application, wherein the plurality of user mode applications register with the common interface and wherein the common interface schedules requests from the plurality of user mode applications to access the data in the file; (b) providing a generalized security filter to obviate the need of loading multiple disparate filters in the kernel in order to access I/O data in the file for each of different user mode applications by causing the kernel mode application to create a file mapping section object of the file when a request is received from each of the more than one registered user mode applications; (c) providing the common interface with information necessary for each of the more than one registered user mode applications to access the file mapping section object; and (d) creating a view of the file by making available the data in the file necessary to fulfill the request.