Roadmap for Developing Parallel Device Drivers

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Ff544788.WDKroadmap_th(en-us,VS.85).pngTo create a parallel device driver, perform the following steps:

  1. Learn about Windows architecture and drivers.

    You must understand the fundamentals of how drivers work in Windows operating systems. Knowing the fundamentals will help you make appropriate design decisions and allow you to streamline your development process. See Understanding Driver and Operating System Basics.

  2. Learn the fundamentals of parallel device drivers.

    To learn parallel device driver fundamentals, see Introduction to Parallel Ports and Devices.

  3. Determine additional parallel device driver design decisions.

    For information about how to make design decisions, see System-Supplied Parallel Drivers and Vendor-Supplied Parallel Drivers.

  4. Learn about the Windows driver build, test, and debug processes and tools.

    Building a driver is not the same as building a user-mode application. See Building, Debugging, and Testing Drivers for information about Windows driver build, debug, and test processes, driver signing, and Windows Logo testing. See Driver Development Tools for information about building, testing, verifying, and debugging tools.

  5. Develop, build, test, and debug your parallel device driver.

    See Overview of Build, Debug, and Test Process for information about iterative building, testing, and debugging. This process will help ensure that you build a driver that works.

  6. Create a driver package for your parallel device driver.

    For more information, see Providing a Driver Package.

  7. Sign and distribute your parallel device driver.

    The final step is to sign (optional) and distribute the driver. If your driver meets the quality standards that are defined for the Microsoft Windows Logo program, you can distribute it through the Microsoft Windows Update program. For more information, see Distributing a Driver.

These are the basic steps. Additional steps might be necessary based on the needs of your individual driver.

 

 

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Build date: 4/9/2010