Serialized NDIS Miniport Drivers (NDIS 5.1)
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 x has been deprecated and is superseded by NDIS 6.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.
A serialized driver controls a NIC for connectionless media, such as Ethernet, FDDI, and Token Ring. Unlike a deserialized miniport driver, a serialized miniport driver relies on NDIS to serialize the operation of its own MiniportXxx functions and to manage the queue for send packets.
Serialized miniport drivers are legacy drivers. If you are writing a new miniport driver, write a deserialized driver. For more information about deserialized drivers, see Deserialized NDIS Miniport Drivers.