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From the Editor
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What's New with Windows and WHDC?
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Next month, we'll be highlighting related information in the upcoming HCT kit and other related releases.
The Driver Development Kit folks have released new DDK documentation on the web – with a host of new features to make it easier to use the DDK. The version of the documentation installed with the DDK includes new quick access to driver sample information. Many of these changes are based on the feedback that you provided through our surveys and the roundtables at WinHEC and Driver DevCon.
Speaking of which – unless you quit reading your e-mail in early December, you know we're hip-deep into planning WinHEC and Driver DevCon for 2005. One question we've heard from people is: " The conferences are at the same time! How am I supposed to choose?" The WHDC team is spending hours every day planning the technical content and special features for both conferences – and designing the USB 2.0 teletransportation machines that will move our Microsoft experts from one place to another during the last week of April. Here’s how to decide which event is right for you:
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If you are an experienced Windows driver developer or tester and others turn to you for development advice, then you want to go to Driver DevCon to explore deep Windows internals and gain expert tips for advanced driver professionals.
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If you are a hardware engineer, system designer, or business decision maker in the PC industry whose every-day professional work is focused on the PC and server hardware platform, then you need to be at WinHEC. Or if you are a beginning or journeyman driver developer who needs a general background on future directions for Windows and the hardware/driver platform, then you also belong at WinHEC.
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The WinHEC planning team has just introduced a registration cost-break for you overachievers who want the best of both worlds. Check the details later in this newsletter.
What do you think of a more personal Hardware Newsletter?
You may have noticed in other Microsoft newsletters that editors are offering a more personal view into the information. We are introducing this for the Hardware Newsletter—for the Machiavellian reason that statistics show that people click links more often in the "Letter from the Editor" articles than in straight news articles.
What do you think of this approach? Please give us your feedback: do you prefer this personal voice, or are you one of the "just the fact, ma'am" readers who will skip straight to the news?
To give us your opinion—or suggestions—please write to whdcinfo@microsoft.com.
As part of this more personal communication, the editors of Microsoft newsletters get to indulge in side notes. My contribution will be to offer exposure to culture you might otherwise avoid at all costs. Here are some links (not on Microsoft.com) to explore in off hours:
Best wishes for the New Year, and here's the key tip from WHDC for 2005:
After you take down your holiday decorations, remember to put up your 64-bit INF decorations
Annie Pearson
for the WHDC team
Driver Tips and News
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Storage drivers that do not use 64-bit INF decorations will initially load using F6 but will generate bug check 7B when the system restarts for the last time after GUI Mode setup, because the F6 mechanism does not use SetupAPI logic to load the storage drivers.
Windows Server 2003 SP1 and later versions do not install driver packages with undecorated INF sections on x64-based systems. For compatibility with Intel Itanium systems, Windows Server 2003 SP1 will install driver packages with undecorated INF sections; however, INF decorations are required by the "Designed for Windows" Logo Program for hardware, so a driver package with undecorated INF sections cannot qualify for the Logo.
The Windows DDK contains a variety of build environments for different operating systems and processors. These environments are all named for the binaries that they build, not the operating system that the build occurs on.
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Tips and Directions for Platforms
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The 64-bit versions of the Windows Server 2003 family are designed to run on high-performance 64-bit processors. For memory-intensive or compute-intensive workloads, the performance and scalability benefits are often dramatic. A 180-day trial kit is available for 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003.
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Kits, Tools, Services, and Programs
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The new DDK release for Windows Server 2003 SP1 includes extensive new documentation about the tracing tools included with Windows and the DDK. Topics include:
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A survey of tracing tools and when to use them.
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Tracing tool concepts, with detailed descriptions of key elements such as trace sessions, message files, and GUIDs.
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Detailed information and examples for using Tracelog, Tracepdb, and Tracefmt.
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How to trace the activity of the Windows kernel, drivers and other trace providers during boot.
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How to use the Windows software trace preprocessor (WPP) to trace a driver's operation on Windows 2000 and later versions of Windows.
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Answers to frequently asked questions about software tracing tools and tracing in general.
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Security and Reliability
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Windows XP SP2 helps protect your computer against the insertion of malicious code into areas of computer memory reserved for non-executable code by implementing a set of hardware and software-enforced technologies called Data Execution Prevention (DEP). Hardware-enforced DEP is a feature of certain processors that prevents the execution of code in memory regions that are marked as data storage. This feature is also known as No-Execute and Execution Protection. Windows XP SP2 also includes software-enforced DEP that is designed to reduce exploits of exception handling mechanisms in Windows.
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WinHEC and Driver DevCon News
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If you plan to attend both events, you are eligible for a $200 discount off your second conference registration. When you complete your first registration, contact the registration company to receive your discount code.
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 Edition for January 12, 2005 |
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Events for Engineers and Developers
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