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This newsletter contains archived content. No warranty is made as to technical accuracy of content or currency of URLs.
Updated WDF Co-Installers
In January, we announced in this newsletter that updated Windows Driver Foundation (WDF) co-installers were available for all versions of Windows that support WDF. However, two patches from Windows Update (KB 938371 and KB 933607) interfered with installation of the Kernel-Mode Driver Framework (KMDF) and the User-Mode Driver Framework (UMDF) on Windows Vista.
To resolve these issues, Microsoft has now released updated WDF 1.7 co-installers. The new MSI provides redistributable co-installers that supplement build 6001.18000 of the Windows Driver Kit (WDK). The default installation location for the MSI is based on disk space. We recommend that you install the MSI in the root directory of your existing WDK installation. You can use the new co-installers to submit drivers for Windows Logo signatures.
To read the full announcement and download the MSI package, go to the Microsoft Connect Web site, and log in. For more information about this issue, see Ilias Tsigkogiannis' blog.
From the Editor
Our team has been hard at work refreshing the content and design for the WHDC Web site. Our updated design includes tabbed navigation on top-level pages to make it easier for you to use the Web site and find the content that you want. We simplified the menu structure to make it easier for you to navigate through the Web site. We updated the following technology area sub-sites to feature the most current content.
• PC Fundamentals
• Device Fundamentals
• Device Connectivity
• Driver Lifecycle Fundamentals
• WDK and Developer Tools
We also moved much of our Windows XP-specific content to the WHDC Archive.
We welcome your feedback on the new design. You can click the "Was this Information Useful" links at the bottom of the technology area sub-sites to send us your comments.
— The WHDC Web team
WinHEC News
Plan Now to Participate in WinHEC 2008
WinHEC, now in its 17th year, will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center, November 5-7. Visit www.microsoft.com/whdc/winhec for more information.
• WinHEC Sponsors and Exhibitors - JOIN NOW!
Reach a broad audience of highly influential technical professionals who develop products for Microsoft Windows platforms. WinHEC provides a unique opportunity to showcase your products, services, and solutions to professionals in the hardware industry through sponsor and exhibitor opportunities.
• Speaking and white paper opportunities will open in June.
• WinHEC 2008 registration will open in July. Mark your calendar and plan to register early to take advantage of discounted pricing.
New Things Happening with the WDK
New Roadmap Topic Type for the WDK Documentation
To help new driver developers and experienced driver developers who are new to a specific type of driver, the WDK writing team is investigating the use of a new roadmap topic type that lists the basic set of steps in the end-to-end driver development process for a specific type of driver. We would love to get your feedback on this new type of topic.
There are two roadmap prototypes published in the WDK Documentation blog:
one for Windows Driver Model (WDM) audio drivers and one for Windows Filtering Platform (WFP) callout drivers.
You can review these prototype topics for accuracy, completeness, and general usefulness, and then add your comments to the blog entry. New Easy-to-Remember URL for the Windows Driver Kit
To access the main page for the WDK on the WHDC Web site, you can now use the URL: http://www.microsoft.com/wdk. This URL will redirect to the WDK and Developer Tools page on WHDC, which contains links to the tools and documentation for the WDK and Windows Logo Kit (WLK). To download the WDK and WLK, click the How to Get the WDK & WLK tab.
News for Windows Driver Developers
Release-Signing File System Drivers
Kernel-mode driver binaries for 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista must be signed, or Windows will not load the binary. A new driver tip on the WHDC Web site explains this requirement and provides basic information on signing for file system drivers, including a detailed walkthrough of the embedded-release signing process. From Sample Code to Production Driver: What to Change in the Sample
The WDK contains a wide variety of sample drivers that demonstrate useful techniques for driver development. You can use these samples as a basis for your own drivers, but before you release the driver, you must change certain device-specific aspects of the sample - beyond the obvious operational code - to uniquely apply the code to your own device and driver. Driver writers sometimes overlook these details. A new driver tip describes the items that you need to change. Hardware Support and Directions for Microsoft Windows Server
A new paper has been published. It is one of a series of papers about Windows Server features that are relevant to the hardware capabilities of a server. The paper describes the Microsoft intention and investment direction for support of specific hardware technologies in current and future releases of the Windows Server operating system.
This paper is aimed at engineers who design servers or the core electronic components of servers, for technical decision makers, for system architects, and for server product planners who want to have their systems support future releases of the Windows Server family of operating systems. Rating Driver Quality
Driver Quality Rating (DQR) is a key measure of driver stability. The DQR scoring system is based on crash statistics supplied by Windows Error Reporting (WER). Microsoft uses this data to compare the frequency of driver-caused crashes and to assign each driver a rating. This paper describes how Microsoft calculates DQR, the tools associated with DQR, and how DQR is used in conjunction with the Windows Logo Program.
What's New on the Blogs for Hardware and Driver Developers
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As you've probably surmised by my blog posts and other writings, I like knowing exactly what my systems are doing. I want to know if a process is running away with the CPU, causing memory pressure, or hitting the disk. Besides keeping my computers running smoothly, my vigilance sometimes helps me spot performance and reliability problems in Windows and third-party code... More...
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...a common - but "hardly thought about by most programmers" problem called "reordering". It is a subtle problem but very important to understand if you write lock-less multithreaded code or write code that directly reads and writes mapped hardware registers... More...
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... Dan Reed is Microsoft's Director of Scalable/Multi-Core Systems Research and head of the recently formed Universal Parallel Computing Research Centers (UPCRC): one at the University of California at Berkeley (UC-Berkeley) and a second at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Since we've been focusing a bit recently on the Concurrency and Parallelism Software Revolution, we figured Dan would be another great technical guru to talk to about Multi/Many-Core's impact on the future of general purpose computing... More...
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Windows Logo Program Tools and News
WLK 1.2 Released
The Windows Logo Program announced the release of Windows Logo Kit (WLK) 1.2, now available for download from Microsoft Connect.
WLK 1.2:
• Synchronizes logo tests with the new logo requirements that take effect June 1, 2008, as part of the new Windows Logo Program (WLP) 2008.
• Includes the new Display Hybrid Graphics logo program and the new Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP).
• Further improves the quality of Driver Test Manager (DTM) and the quality of the logo tests.
Windows Quality Online Services (Winqual) will accept submissions from WLK 1.2 beginning immediately - including the new Display Hybrid Graphics logo program. You must use WLK 1.2 for all submissions beginning June 9, 2008.
Winqual will not accept any submission for the new SVVP program until June 1, 2008.
This WLK 1.2 release includes new validation programs, tests, and features, and it is fully supported by Microsoft Customer Support Services (CSS) and Winqual for logo submissions on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Vista SP1, and Windows Server 2008.
For complete details, see the release announcement.
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