NDIS Drivers (NDIS 5.1)

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Note   NDIS 5. x has been deprecated and is superseded by NDIS 6. x. For new NDIS driver development, see Network Drivers Starting with Windows Vista. For information about porting NDIS 5. x drivers to NDIS 6. x, see Porting NDIS 5.x Drivers to NDIS 6.0.

The Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) library abstracts the network hardware from network drivers. NDIS also specifies a standard interface between layered network drivers, thereby abstracting lower-level drivers that manage hardware from upper-level drivers, such as network transports. NDIS also maintains state information and parameters for network drivers, including pointers to functions, handles, and parameter blocks for linkage, and other system values.

As the following figure shows, NDIS supports the following types of network drivers:

  • Miniport drivers

  • Intermediate drivers

  • Protocol drivers

 

 

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