Drivers for 64-bit Windows

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The 64-bit version of Windows is designed to let developers use a single source-code base for both Win32-based and Win64-based applications - and to a large extent - for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows drivers.

Key considerations of 64-bit Windows for driver development include the following:

  • Three classes of new data types:

    • Fixed-precision integer types
    • Pointer-precision integer types
    • Specific-precision pointer types

  • 64-bit compiler

  • Perform direct memory access (DMA)

    Adding 64-bit addressing support to a driver can significantly improve overall system performance. In 64-bit Windows, device drivers that perform DMA but do not support 64-bit addressing are double-buffered, which results in lower relative performance. Although double-buffering usually has a relatively small impact (single percentage points) on 8-GB systems, this impact is noticeable for I/O-intensive tasks, such as database activity. As the amount of physical memory increases, this negative performance impact increases as well.

  • Support 32-bit I/O in 64-bit drivers

    If a device driver uses the DMA routines in Windows 2000 correctly, the driver's DMA code should work without modification on 64-bit Windows.

Microsoft provides guidelines on the Web and in the Windows DDK to help developers with porting drivers to 64-bit Windows. Application developers should see the guidelines that are provided in the Microsoft Platform SDK.

Driver Porting Issues Checklist

  • Use:
    • Win64-safe data types
    • Proper format specifiers in Printf and Wsprintf
    • PtrToLong and PtrToUlong to truncate pointers
    • FIELD_OFFSET macro
    • TYPE_ALIGNMENT macro
  • Be Careful:
    • When performing unsigned and signed operations
    • When using hexadecimal constants and unsigned values
    • With NOT operations
    • When computing buffer sizes with polymorphic interfaces
    • When calling functions that have pointer OUT parameters
    • To know your address space
    • To remember that 0xFFFFFFFF is not the same as -1
    • To examine all data-structure pointer usage
    • To watch for data-type changes in Public Kernel Structures
    • When using structure packing directives
  • Avoid:
    • Using computed or hard-coded pointer offsets
    • Using hard-coded pointer or handle values
    • Using different packing levels in the same header file
  • Do not cast pointers to int, long, ULONG, or DWORD

Designing for 64-bit Windows

64-bit system design

Getting Ready for 64-bit Windows

 

 

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