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This newsletter contains archived content. No warranty is made as to technical accuracy of content or currency of URLs.
On Windows Vista and later versions, the boot configuration data (BCD) store contains the boot configuration parameters and controls the computer's boot environment. BCDEdit is a Windows Vista command-line tool that can be used to add, delete, edit, and modify data in a BCD store. This paper on the WHDC Web site provides a reference for BCDEdit commands, data types, and well-known identifiers. See also Windows Vista PreOS Environment (Windows Kernel team on Channel 9).
This specification--available through a royalty-free license agreement on the WHDC Web site--defines the conventions for using XML to describe the capabilities of a print device and its configuration for a particular print job. The goal of this specification is to ensure the interoperability of independently created software and hardware systems that produce or consume content that complies with Print Schema.
This new white paper describes the third-party benchmark study by The Tolly Group that compares network throughput and time-to-completion of several tasks when using Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 versus Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. You can download it here.
The presentations and white papers from WinHEC 2007 are now available on the Web. Recommended: For audio presentations and additional resources, order the WinHEC 2007 Conference DVD.
Notes and Tips for Driver Developers
Static tools such as PRE fast for Drivers and Static Driver Verifier produce better results when function typedef declarations--also called "role types"--are used to declare callback functions. For drivers written in C, this is simple to do. For drivers written in C++, however, several variations are best clarified through examples. A new driver tip on the WHDC Web site shows several examples of how to implement function typedef declarations in C++ driver code.
The Storage team in the Windows Division has provided two examples to show how to implement extensions for the Windows Image Mastering API (IMAPI), v. 2.0. The goal in the example scenario is to enable a new type of erase functionality through Windows. The Erase Extension Example shows how to create an IMAPIv2 extension to support the new erase method, and the Shell Extension Example shows how to expose the new functionality to users through a shell extension. For background information, download the Optical Platform--Enabling the Vision PowerPoint presentation.
Windows Vista provides three print driver architecture models that driver developers can use to create customized drivers for print devices: Unidrv for PCL devices, PScript5 for PostScript devices, and XPSDrv for drivers or devices that process the XPS document format. This new paper from Microsoft describes how developers can access the Microsoft components of these print driver models for redistributions with driver installation packages.
Windows Logo Program Tools and News
The following issues have been found in CMCK since its release in the June 2007 Client release of the Windows Logo Kit (WLK 1.0.c). Missing CardGetContainerInfo test case for non-authenticated user. CardGetContainerInfo must return container information even if the caller is not authenticated. Currently, no test case covers this requirement. CardSignData CARD_PADDING_PSS test does not ensure the key size is sufficient for the hash algorithm used. The CardSignData test for padding uses the maximum key size supported by the card. However, if your card minidriver uses the supplied pad data callback and supports a maximum RSA key size of less than 1024 bits, then the CardSignData test fails certain combinations of the CALG_SHA_XXX hash algorithms and PSS padding. CardSignData positive and PaddingInfoSupport tests. When testing CardSignData with the CARD_BUFFER_SIZE_ONLY flag, the version of the signing information structure is incorrectly set to CARD_SIGNING_INFO_BASIC_VERSION. Support for this flag is configurable in the cmck_config.xml file, so the test can be skipped by omitting this flag. NoMemoryLeaks uses an AT_SIGNATURE key to decrypt data. In the NoMemoryLeaks test, an AT_SIGNATURE key is used to decrypt data.
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If you use Driver Test Manager (DTM), you can use this new version of the DTM Log Viewer outside the DTM Studio environment to diagnose test failures.
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Microsoft has provided new training videos to help testers and developers have success with the audio fidelity tests for the Windows Logo Program:
- How to Export and Import Audio Fidelity Test Logs
- Running the Audio Fidelity Test Locally
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