Creating a software product from a software application

Abstract

A product browser with a user interface at a device configured for receiving a user selection of a product from a source, the source including a plurality of products, for execution at the device, wherein the product is a self-contained file resolvable by the product browser. The product browser includes searching code for discovering the product at the source based on metadata associated with the product responsive to a user input at the product browser and wherein the product requires a license for execution, license accessing code for automatically accessing the license for the product from a database of licenses, and storing code for storing the license for automatic license activation upon execution of the product.

What is claimed: 
     
         1 . A non-transitory computer-usable storage medium having instructions embodied therein that when executed cause a computer system to perform a method for launching a product, the method comprising:
 displaying a catalog of available software products at a product browser, wherein the product browser is searchable by a user responsive to user input at the product browser, wherein the catalog of available software products is maintained at a server;   receiving a launch request for a software product of the available products;   receiving a license slip file at the product browser, wherein the license slip file indicates how the product browser is licensed;   accessing a location of an instant-on application binary for the software product, wherein the instant-on application binary provides execution of the software product without installation of the software product;   launching the software product at the product browser using the instant-on application binary;   determining an appropriate license for the software product based on the license slip file; and   activating the software product according to the appropriate license.   
     
     
         2 . The non-transitory computer-usable storage medium of  claim 1 , the method further comprising:
 authenticating the product browser at the server.   
     
     
         3 . The non-transitory computer-usable storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein the launching the software product using the instant-on application binary comprises:
 receiving a user configuration for the software product.   
     
     
         4 . The non-transitory computer-usable storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein the activating the software product according to the appropriate license comprises:
 automatically accessing the appropriate license for the software product via the product browser from a database of licenses associated with an enterprise.   
     
     
         5 . The non-transitory computer-usable storage medium of  claim 4 , wherein the activating the software product according to the appropriate license further comprises:
 storing the license for automatic license activation upon execution of the software product, wherein the license is one of a limited number of licenses owned by the enterprise for the software product.   
     
     
         6 . The non-transitory computer-usable storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein the software product comprises critical dynamic-link library (dll) files that are pre-fetched by the product browser before other components of the software product such that the software product will be executed at the product browser before rest of the software product is downloaded. 
     
     
         7 . The non-transitory computer-usable storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein the software product is structured with a virtualized private registry to be integrated with an operating system registry upon execution at the product browser wherein certain registry keys are virtualized in the virtualized private registry and other registry keys will be deferred to the operating system registry such that the instant-on application binary of the software product executes natively on an operating system without virtualization and wherein the virtualized private registry is employed only if a particular registry key is virtualized while other calls are passed through to the operating system. 
     
     
         8 . A computer-implemented method for installing a product, the method comprising:
 displaying a catalog of available software products at a product browser, wherein the product browser is searchable by a user responsive to user input at the product browser, wherein the catalog of available software products is maintained at a server;   receiving an installation request for a software product of the available products;   receiving a license slip file at the product browser, wherein the license slip file indicates how the product browser is licensed;   accessing a location of an installer for the software product;   launching installation of the software product at the product browser using the installer;   after the installation of the software product, determining an appropriate license for the software product based on the license slip file; and   activating the software product according to the appropriate license.   
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 8 , further comprising:
 authenticating the product browser at the server.   
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein the launching installation of the software product at the product browser using the installer comprises:
 receiving a user configuration for the software product.   
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein the activating the software product according to the appropriate license comprises:
 automatically accessing the appropriate license for the software product via the product browser from a database of licenses associated with an enterprise.   
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein the activating the software product according to the appropriate license further comprises:
 storing the license for automatic license activation upon execution of the software product, wherein the license is one of a limited number of licenses owned by the enterprise for the software product.   
     
     
         13 . A non-transitory computer-usable storage medium having computer-readable program code embedded therein for a product browser, the computer-readable program code comprising:
 a product browser with a user interface at a device configured for receiving a user selection of a product from a source, the source comprising a plurality of products, for execution at the device, wherein the product is a self-contained file resolvable by the product browser, the product browser further comprising:   searching code for discovering the product at the source based on metadata associated with the product responsive to a user input at the product browser and wherein the product requires a license for execution;   license accessing code for automatically accessing the license for the product from a database of licenses; and   storing code for storing the license for automatic license activation upon execution of the product.   
     
     
         14 . The non-transitory computer-usable storage medium of  claim 13 , product browser further comprising:
 executing code for executing the product at the device via the product browser in response to a command from a user.   
     
     
         15 . The non-transitory computer-usable storage medium of  claim 13 , the product browser further comprising:
 metering code for tracking a usage of the product via the product browser.   
     
     
         16 . The non-transitory computer-usable storage medium of  claim 15 , wherein the metering code notifies an administrator of an option to reclaim the license in response to information that the product is under-utilized by the device. 
     
     
         17 . The non-transitory computer-usable storage medium of  claim 15 , wherein the metering code generates a report regarding usage of the product. 
     
     
         18 . The non-transitory computer-usable storage medium of  claim 13 , the product browser further comprising:
 receiving code for receiving an execution command from the user for the product.   
     
     
         19 . The non-transitory computer-usable storage medium of  claim 13 , the product browser further comprising:
 retrieval code for initiating a streaming retrieval of the product from the source.   
     
     
         20 . The non-transitory computer-usable storage medium of  claim 13 , the product browser further comprising:
 executing code for executing the product at a computer system via the product browser during the streaming retrieval before the streaming retrieval is complete.