Edit

Installing the WDK 8.1 Build Environment in a Lab

  • Article

The Windows Driver Kit (WDK) 8.1 provides a feature that enables you to copy components of Visual Studio and the WDK to a new location and then launch the build environment from the command line. From here you can build Windows drivers without having to run the Visual Studio or WDK installation programs.

You might find this feature useful if you need to integrate the WDK with your build process, or if you want to distribute the build process in a lab or test environment.

Note  You can only use this feature for building drivers and applications that use C and C++. This feature cannot be used for managed code or UWP apps.

1. Download the Visual Studio and WDK and SDK setup files

To run the set up script that enables this feature, you need to provide the paths to the Visual Studio and WDK setup files. Be sure to save these files (rather than install them).

  1. Download Visual Studio Professional 2013 or Visual Studio Ultimate 2013. Download the Product Layout (for example, vs_ultimate_download.exe ). When you are asked if you want to run or save vs_ultimate_download.exe, select Run and then select the download option and specify the download path as C:\VSSetup (this makes the later steps easier). Select Download to download and install a local copy of the DVD layout on the computer.
  2. Download the standalone SDK. When you are asked if you want to run or save sdksetup.exe, select Run and then specify the download location as C:\Kits\SDK. Select Next and follow the instructions to download the standalone SDK.
  3. Download the WDK 8.1. When you are asked if you want to run or save wdksetup.exe, select Run and then specify the download location as C:\Kits\WDK. Select Next and follow the instructions to download the WDK. If you have already installed the WDK on the computer, the web installation program will tell you that the features installed on the computer are up-to-date. To download the WDK setup files so that you can deploy the build environment, select Next and specify the C:\Kits\WDK path.

2. Download the BuildLabSupport files

To be able install the WDK build environment on computers in a lab, you need to first download the build lab support files on your computer.

  1. Download BuildLabSupportfiles.zip.
  2. Extract the contents of the compressed file to your computer. The extracted files include the BuildLabSupport directory and include the setup files and utilities you need.

3. Install the WDK 8.1 build environment

The build lab support files include the setup.ps1 PowerShell command file, which extracts the needed Visual Studio and WDK components and copies them to a target directory (folder). You can then copy this directory to another location, from which you can build projects in a Visual Studio command-line interface (CLI) development environment.

  • Open a Command Prompt window with elevated privileges (Run as administrator) and go to the directory where you extracted build lab support files. The PowerShell command script setup.ps1 is in the <root>\BuildLabSupport directory.

    The syntax for the PowerShell command is as follows:

    PowerShell 
    powershell –executionpolicy bypass –file Setup.ps1 –DeployBuildLab –VSInstallerPath <VSInstallerFilePath> -KitInstallersPath <KitInstallersPath> -ExpansionRoot <Target Directory> –LogFilePath <LogFilePath> -CatalogFile <Filename.xml>
    • The <VSInstallerFilePath> is the path to the Visual Studio installation program (for example, Vs_ultimate.exe) and directory that contains the product layout.
    • The <KitInstallersPath> is the path to the WDK and SDK setup files.
    • The <Target Directory> is the target directory for the extracted content.
    • The <LogFilePath> is the target destination for the log file.
    • <Filename.xml> is the name of the CatalogFile, which contains a list of Microsoft Windows installation files (MSI) to expand as part of the installation. The name of the file is files.xml.

    For example, the following command runs the script from BuildLabSupport directory and installs the build environment in C:\BuildLabInstall directory.

    c:\BuildLabSupport>powershell -executionpolicy bypass -file Setup.ps1 -DeployBuildLab -VSInstallerPath c:\VSSetup -KitInstallersPath c:\Kits -E
xpansionRoot C:\BuildLabInstall -CatalogFile  files.xml

4. Build Windows driver projects and solutions

Using the build environment command script

  1. Open a Command Prompt window. Locate the LaunchBuildEnv.cmd file located in the target directory (for example, C:\BuildLabInstall).

  2. Launch the build environment by running LaunchBuildEnv.cmd.

  3. Use MSBuild commands to build your driver projects and solutions. For example:

    msbuild /t:clean /t:build .\MyDriver.vcxproj /p:Configuration="Win8.1 Debug" /p:Platform=Win32