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HD Photo, also known as Windows Media Photo, is a new file format for continuous-tone still images. The HD Photo format delivers a lightweight, high-performance algorithm with a small memory footprint. The goal for this format is to enable practical, in-device encoding and decoding. Among the many features, HD Photo delivers twice the image quality of JPEG.

The first preview draft of the specification was one of the year's most in-demand downloads on the WHDC Web site (surpassed only by Windows symbol packages and WinDbg). The HD Photo specification V. 1.0 is now available on the WHDC Web site for download and as part of the HD Photo Device Porting Kit (DPK).

As Bill Crow says in his blog: "We have made a substantial change to the licensing. The previous Windows Media Photo DPK evaluation and distribution license agreements are gone. We have replaced them with a straightforward click-to-install End User License Agreement (EULA) for the new HD Photo 1.0 DPK. It's now easy for anyone to receive the complete HD Photo DPK, including the compressed bitstream specification and the ANSI-C reference source code. The DPK is free, and we have eliminated all distribution royalties. HD Photo is 100% free for all developers."

The HD Photo DPK provides development and test utilities, such as a sample make file for building the reference code on a Unix or Linux platform that supports a big-endian processor architecture. But please note that developers don't need the DPK for Windows application development because HD Photo is included in Windows Vista and available for Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 with either .NET Framework 3.0 for managed code applications or Windows Imaging Component (WIC) for unmanaged code applications.

Reminder: Plan to take advantage of the Express Upgrade to Windows Vista offer to jump to 21st Century hardware and new Windows Vista features. In preparing to upgrade your personal systems, you can be a beta tester of the Check for Hardware and Device Compatibility with Windows Vista Readiness Assessment.

-- Annie Pearson
for the WHDC Web team

WHDC After Dark:

Waste a few minutes here: This is actually useful for when you get into a twisted discussion with your children about why you need to study math if you intend to be a creative artist.

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Tools and Tips for Driver Developers

A new paper from the Windows Driver Install team provides technical details for driver developers on how to uninstall drivers and devices in Windows Vista. It describes how the PnP manager of Driver Install Framework (DIFx) tools uninstalls a device, deletes a driver package, and deletes the driver's binary files. Then it provides guidelines and best practices for how to best implement uninstall support in driver packages.

With the release of the Windows Vista version of the Windows Driver Kit (WDK), the Windows Driver Foundation frameworks--KMDF 1.5 and UMDF 1.0--are now provided as part of the WDK, instead of as separate downloads.

For KMDF, a new feature allows a driver to specify its own pooltag for all the memory allocation done by the framework. (See WDF_DRIVER_CONFIG in the WDK documentation. A new DDI has been added: WdfUsbInterfaceGetNumSettings. Also, a new debug extension has been added to get trace messages from KMDF runtime: !wdftmffile. This command should be used to set the .tmf file instead of the !wdfsearchpath command that was used in KMDF Version 1.1. For more information about the changes in KMDF and UMDF for this release, see the WDK release notes.

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Hardware Design for Windows

A new download for the Version 3.0.1 ASL complier is available on the ACPI and Power Management page on the WHDC Web site. See also the Power Event Monitoring Tool Sample Application.

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Tips from Windows Experts

From Doron Holan's blog: "If you are using DbgPrint for your debug output in Windows Vista you may have noticed that you cannot see anything in the debugger. That is because DbgPrint now defaults to the DEFAULT debug component (you can read about the change here) and the default settings for this component is to hide all output. To remedy this, you can do either of the following:

"1) Change the value of Kd_DEFAULT_MASK to 0xFFFFFFF ('ed nt!Kd_DEFAULT_MASK 0xFFFFFFF') at runtime or right after boot.

"2) Open up the registry and go to this path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Debug Print Filter and add the following value "DEFAULT" : REG_DWORD : 0xFFFFFFFF and then reboot.

This will allow you to see your debug output, but you might see a lot of other components' outputs as well. One way to mitigate this is to use DbgPrintEx instead and pick the component ID which most closely matches your driver's functionality. Note that DbgPrintEx is only available on Windows XP and later, so if you need to support Windows 2000 you might want to stick with DbgPrint since choosing which function to use at runtime can be difficult, since passing var args can be difficult unless you have variadic parameter support for macros (which the latest WDK has)."

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Windows Logo Program and WHQL News

The updated suite of requirements includes clarifications for client system motherboards, S3 resume time, audio jacks, and more. Version 3.08 changes for devices clarify and refine requirements for embedded USB Bluetooth adapters, graphics and display devices, audio, keyboards and pointing devices, and USB flash storage. For details, see Windows Logo Program Requirements News.

The RTM versions of the Windows Driver Kit (WDK) is now available on Microsoft Connect. This release includes Windows Driver Foundation (WDF) and Device Test Manager (DTM). THE RTM version of the DTM is required for Logo Program testing beginning January 1. For information about obtaining the WDK, see the WDK page on WHDC Web.

See also:
Windows Update and Driver Distribution Center Support for Windows Vista Customers
DTM Database Options and Maintenance Best Practices

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WinHEC News

Sponsor and Exhibitor opportunities are now available for WinHEC 2007 in Los Angeles, May 15-17. WinHEC provides a unique opportunity to showcase your products, services, and solutions to professionals in the hardware industry. Sponsorship allows your company to connect with the right audience to introduce customers and other partners to your innovative technologies in the most time-efficient and cost-effective manner possible. You can find comprehensive information on the WinHEC Web site. Note that the Call for Presentations will be announced in January.

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Edition for

November 30, 2006

In This Issue: