This newsletter contains archived content. No warranty is made as to technical accuracy of content or currency of URLs.
The Microsoft Hardware Newsletter provides manufacturers and developers the latest technical details for how to succeed with the Windows platform. Stay up to date on beta and final product releases, and specifications for new technologies. Register now, if you're not already receiving the Microsoft Hardware Newsletter.
|
From the Editor
|
|
|
The apparition of these faces in the crowd*: We're back and unpacking from WinHEC and Driver DevCon. From the queries we're getting, people are excited about the many new technologies and advances announced at WinHEC 2005 that Microsoft plans for the Microsoft® Windows® codenamed "Longhorn" operating system.
|
I want to highlight a particular favorite from WinHEC and Driver DevCon: a family of new technologies from Microsoft, code-named "Metro," that offers a unified framework to address electronic document-based workflows, including advanced graphics and extended color information in everyday documents and Web applications.
"Metro" offers an open document format that uses XML and other current industry standards to create a modern, cross-platform set of document and imaging technologies. These new technologies are designed to simplify creation, sharing, printing, viewing and archiving of digital documents, while also improving image fidelity and print performance. The Metro print path is the print path in that supports the new Metro document format and the Avalon graphics engine.
Based on the many announcements at WinHEC and the upcoming beta testing cycles, we will be focusing in this newsletter on new device technologies, driver directions, testing programs, and system advances to help hardware engineers, system designers, and driver developers succeed with Windows Longhorn.
—Annie Pearson for the WHDC team
WHDC After Dark. Every one of us has been locked in WinHEC and Driver DevCon sessions all week (okay, we did slip out at night for a couple of parties). But we found these incredibly helpful links for people who have only an Internet link to the outside world:
| • |
*"Petals, on a wet, black bough": Although 'In the Station of the Metro' plays a small role on this Web site, do not click this link unless you have significant time on your hands or are pondering the reasons to argue. And do not click the link if you are still mad about the color test in the last issue.
|
| • |
Vogon Poetry: It's not "In a Station of the Metro" or other artsy allusions. It's the third worst poetry in the galaxy.
|
Tips for Driver Developers
|
|
AVStream supports DMA on 32-bit and 64-bit addressable devices. All drivers compiled for 64-bit Windows platforms should use IKsDeviceFunctions::RegisterAdapterObjectEx instead of KsDeviceRegisterAdapterObject. Note that IKsDeviceFunctions::RegisterAdapterObjectEx is available only in Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003 SP1 and later.
To ensure that your NDIS driver passes Hardware Compatibility Tests (HCTs) for the Windows Logo Program, your NDIS driver should not call routines that are prohibited or discouraged. This article from the Windows DDK provides specific information about:
| • |
Kernel-mode routines to avoid for all NDIS drivers
|
| • |
Kernel-mode routines that are discouraged for all NDIS drivers
|
| • |
Functions to avoid for NDIS 5.1 and later drivers
|
|
Spotlight on Security and Reliability
|
|
Level 300 MSDN Webcast - May 17, 2005 10:00 AM PDT (GMT-08:00)
Simple answers to eradicating buffer overruns range from "get better developers" to "use non-executable stacks and heaps" to "don't use standard string libraries." Unfortunately, these "solutions" take an inherently complicated problem, and try to propose silver bullets that aren't sufficient. This webcast will look at taxonomies for buffer overruns that go beyond just "stack" and "heap," as well as explore real-world techniques for preventing and detecting vulnerabilities both when code is created and during the development and QA process. It will also focus on approaches to mitigating the exploitation of vulnerabilities at system runtime - and how new categories of exploits defeat those mitigations. Presenter: Jon Pincus, Senior Researcher, Microsoft Research, Microsoft Corporation
Level 300 MSDN Webcast - May 31, 2005 10:00 AM PDT (GMT-08:00)
The SLAM project originated in Microsoft Research in early 2000. Its goal is to automatically check that a C program correctly uses the interface to an external library. The SLAM analysis engine forms the core of a new tool called Static Driver Verifier (SDV) that systematically analyzes the source code of Microsoft Windows device drivers against a set of rules that define what it means for a device driver to properly interact with the Windows operating system kernel. Join this webcast and learn about the history and inner workings of this innovative project, and see how it uses and extends ideas from symbolic model checking, program analysis and theorem proving in novel ways to address this problem. Presenter: Tom Ball, Senior Researcher, Microsoft Corporation
Tip: The new Windows Server 2003 SP1 DDK provides the driver-specific version of PREfast as the default version, in addition to documentation advances, new samples, and the build environment and tools to support driver development for multiple Windows operating system editions.
Microsoft Baseline Security Analyze 2.0 uses the Windows Update Services infrastructure for security update scanning. Please help us improve the quality of this release. We are currently accepting nominations into the MBSA 2.0 beta program. To nominate yourself for the beta, visit http://beta.microsoft.com, sign in to the system using your Passport ID and a guest ID of "MBSA20" and complete the survey.
SDL is a process Microsoft has adopted for the development of software that needs to withstand malicious attack. The process encompasses the addition of a series of security-focused activities and deliverables to each of the phases of Microsoft's software development process. These activities and deliverables include the development of threat models during software design, the use of static analysis code-scanning tools during implementation, and the conduct of code reviews and security testing during a focused "security push."
|
Downloads
|
|
Windows XP SP2 is required, and your wireless access point also has to support WPA2, so you might want to check your vendor's site for new firmware.
KB article with complete details
This specification defines the transport-independent portion of Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) without regard to either device type or operating system.
|
|
Edition for
