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From the Editor
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Remember the first time you saw a well-dressed guy walking along talking to himself--and you thought he was in the Twilight Zone until you realized he had an ear-bud for his cell phone? That was only a couple of years ago, and already we have new cultural norms for talking on phones everywhere.
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These days, when you walk down the hall at work, you see people talking to their PCs--but what's said is typically censorable and never really contributes to productivity. However, within the next couple of years, we predict you'll be talking to your PC and getting your job done--perhaps using IP telephony for conferencing or collaborative whiteboarding.
Yeah, you've heard it before, but we're getting there in the very near future--through well-defined, cost-effective hardware engineering solutions and operating system support that will make PC-based voice communication common at work and at home.
We have a host of technical design guidelines and previews of new Windows support to report at WinHEC 2005 and Driver DevCon--from natural input on mobile PCs and an Ultrawide Band Architecture preview to a deep examination of the industry opportunities for server clusters and High Performance Computing. Check the article at the end of this newsletter for details.
WHDC After Dark: We've been reviewing WinHEC and Driver DevCon slides for 9 hours a day. After looking closely at 225 hours of technical presentations, you start dreaming in PPT format. Our guys have a ton of information to share--so we have to give expert advice to people who want to present the equivalent of the ACPI spec on a single slide. Here's our advice:
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Let Me Take You Down: Someone like totally just invented the best format for music EVER: PPT list format.
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Stop Making Sense: PowerPoint in an alternate universe: Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information.
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The Feynman-Tufte Principle: The best rule of thumb we've found: "a visual display of data should be simple enough to fit on the side of a van." (But for WinHEC slides showing Cluster Server architecture, that would have to be like a Kenworth truck outfitted as a moving van.)
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Annie Pearson
for the WHDC team
News for Kernel-Mode Developers
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Suppose you're writing a driver for a device that contains several different kinds of sensors. You want to allow clients to open individual sensors and you want to give more than one client simultaneous access to a given sensor, but you want to avoid the complexity of writing a bus driver that exposes each sensor through Plug and Play.
Your first thought might be to create a device object for each sensor, but there's a simpler solution: Use a file-system-style notation to define a "sensor namespace" for your device object. Your driver can determine which sensor is being opened by parsing the file name in the create request. You can even expose the different sensors through separate Plug and Play device interfaces, something you can't do with one device object for each sensor. You can use the namespace technique in drivers for Microsoft Windows NT(R) 4.0 and later versions of Windows.
What should you do? If you are writing a single driver that provides access to multiple items, implement a namespace rather than multiple device objects or a bus driver:
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Use a file-system-style notation to identify each item that your device supports.
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Check FileObject > FileName in the I/O stack location of the create request to determine which item is being opened.
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Allocate storage for per-client information, including the filename string, and point to it from the FsContext of the file object, or create a lookup table that maps the PFILE_OBJECT to your context pointer and store the table in the device extension.
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If you're writing a PnP driver, use device interfaces to distinguish among kinds of items and the reference string to identify an individual item.
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Ensure that the device object is opened for nonexclusive access.
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Maintain a reference count of the number of times each item has been opened. If you want an item to be opened for exclusive use by one client, fail any create requests for the item if it is already in use.
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Specify FILE_DEVICE_SECURE_OPEN in the characteristics of your device object so the I/O manager applies the security descriptor of the device object to open requests for items as well as for the device itself.
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System Fundamentals Tips and News
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WS-Management--which is built on Web Services--offers a strong foundation for building interoperability between systems management solutions. At WinHEC 2004, Microsoft, Intel, and AMD discussed and demonstrated the potential for using standard Web Services for managing server hardware. Since then, a number of hardware and software vendors have come together to develop the WS-Management proposal. At WinHEC 2005, three of the proposal's co-authors--Intel, Microsoft, and Sun--we'll be discussing the implementation details and their respective product plans for WS-Management.
New Windows products from Microsoft are launching in 2005. The vast majority of the new servers and high-end workstations sold in 2005 will be 64-bit capable. Now is the time to get ready for the upcoming demand of 64-bit computing. Microsoft, Intel and HP are joining to bring technical training to a city near you.
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Kits, Tools, Services, and Programs
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Up-to-date symbol packages for Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 are available for download now.
The Windows Server 2003 SP1 Driver Development Kit (DDK) is a consolidated kit that provides documentation, driver samples, build environment, and tools to support driver development for Windows 2000 through Windows Server 2003 SP1 operating systems.
HCT 12.1.01 is a minor revision to HCT 12.1 that facilitates future updates to the kit. After May 18, 2005, all "Designed for Windows" logo and driver signing test submissions must use HCT 12.1.01. You can find information about the changes in this HCT in the revised WHQL Test Specification.
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Security and Reliability
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Steve Lipner and Michael Howard of the Microsoft Security Business and Technology Unit discuss the Trustworthy Computing Security Development Lifecycle (or SDL) in a new paper on MSDN. The Trustworthy Computing SDL is a process Microsoft adopted for the development of software that needs to withstand malicious attack. The process encompasses a series of security-focused activities and deliverables in each phase of the software development process.
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WHDC Events: WinHEC and Driver DevCon
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The WHDC team encourages you to join us in Seattle to learn about the trends, technologies and business opportunities that affect your work.
WinHEC 2005 will provide the opportunity for industry professionals to partner in driving the future engineering and business directions of PC and device hardware. This year, WinHEC focuses on the next version of Windows codenamed "Longhorn" and attendees will receive an updated developer preview build.
In addition, we invite you to join the launch of Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions at WinHEC. The Microsoft x64 Fast Lane will showcase over 20 partners who have teamed up to demonstrate x64 computing, showing the latest in 64-bit computing through hands-on demos, gaming stations, and interactive exhibits.
WinHEC Conference Schedule. The WinHEC conference schedule has been designed to present you with the detailed information you need to determine strategic investment directions for your business, along with the technical details you need to successfully implement solutions.
Driver DevCon. Driver developers and testers in your company may be interested in attending Driver DevCon which will be held simultaneously with WinHEC. Driver DevCon focuses on kernel-mode driver concepts, Windows internals, and development and debugging techniques.
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