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Mutexes and executive spin locks: you know that mutexes provide exclusive access to a resource, and you know—well, I was going to make a joke about vice presidents and spin locks, but some of the editors think that vice presidents might be a protected class, so I couldn't use the joke.
Can you answer this off the top of your head: what's the effect on asynchronous procedure calls (APCs) while a driver is waiting to acquire a mutex? Are all APCs disabled? *
To help you with driver programming decisions, the WHDC team created a table that lists the synchronization primitives available to kernel-mode drivers, along with the characteristics of each primitive. The table includes the following information:
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Primitive: Name, data type, and DDIs that acquire and release it.
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Usage: Type and when to use it.
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IRQL: IRQL for caller and IRQL for code that is protected by the primitive.
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Effect on APCs: Whether user, normal kernel, and special kernel APCs can be delivered while the primitive is in use.
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Recursive acquisition: Whether it can be acquired recursively and thus used safely in reentrant code.
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Operating system support: The versions of Windows that support this primitive.
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—Annie Pearson for the WHDC team
*User APCs and normal kernel APCs are disabled; special kernel APCs are delivered and executed.
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WHDC After Dark. There's always at least one moment of the day to waste:
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Discontinued and orphan technology: A friend in the Engineering Excellence group sent me this. I had three of them in the '70s and I'd have one again in a heartbeat. But I got mine for $100 each. Probably no longer possible.
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Tiny trebuchets: People have been doing this for fun as early as the Twelfth Century. You don't need a yard large enough for pumpkin- and piano-hurling devices; you can enjoy medieval projectile technology in the comfort of your own home.
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Getting Drivers and Hardware Ready for Longhorn
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Removal of ATM Support Planned for Windows Longhorn
Microsoft plans to discontinue support for ATM devices by removing the ATM call manager (atmuni.sys), the ATM LAN Emulation layer (atmlane.sys), the RFC2684 driver (atmepvc.sys), and the ability to load an ATM driver in future versions of the Windows operating systems.
Currently, this capability is supported in Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows Millennium Edition. Microsoft has not identified any customer dependency on this capability. If you are an IHV or OEM who has a business dependency on this capability, please provide feedback to netdd@microsoft.com.
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News for Device and Driver Developers
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The Object Manager is a shared resource, a subsystem upon which all other executive kernel subsystems rely to get their jobs done. Adrian Marinescu, a senior developer who works on the Object Manager as well as local procedure call (LPC) functionality and the Heap Manager, provides a whiteboard talk on Channel 9 [40 minutes].
How to use the Network Location Awareness (NLA) API from managed code. NLA allows applications to identify current logical network connections and be notified of changes to the current network connections. See the related WinHEC presentation: "Network Location Awareness Vision and Scenarios"
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Kits, Tools, Services, Programs, Previews
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UVCView is a tool for examining the device descriptors on USB peripherals. This update of UVCView includes fixes for errors reported by the development community. UVCView is based on the USBView tool, which is available as a sample with source code in the Microsoft Windows DDK.
This article highlights the Beta 1 RC release of "Avalon," the next-generation Windows presentation graphics subsystem. This build adds support for Express applications, media, "Metro," and speech. Download the Beta1 Release Candidate
To download the new specs, visit the USB Implementers Forum on the Web.
Features in this version of Windows are targeted to enable new scenarios such as simplified branch office server management, streamlined collaboration with partners, and efficient storage management, building upon the increased security, reliability, and performance provided by Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1.
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