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I was at Carnegie Mellon University in 1995. The machines in the computer clusters there downloaded a central image from central servers to overwrite the machi

I was at Carnegie Mellon University in 1995. The machines in the computer clusters there downloaded a central image from central servers to overwrite the machine, regularly. I imagine it used rsync, though I don't know for sure. This had definitely been implemented and in regular use before 1995.

btilly 16y ago
Did you actually read the patent? I am very familiar with reimaging machines from a central server, booting machines off of remote images, and roving profiles. All were in use before this technology. None fits the claims of the patent in any way. The key point of the patent being that it lets you get incremental updates to software whenever you want. The incremental bits avoids having to copy the whole thing, which is important when your connections aren't that good. Incidentally rsync was publicly announced in 1996 so I very strongly doubt that they were using it in 1995.