Video Miniport Driver Requirements (Windows 2000 Model)

The following are some of the requirements for video miniport drivers.

  • An NT-based operating system video miniport driver must be a single .sys file.

    A miniport driver consists of a single binary file. The miniport driver's main purpose is to detect, initialize, and configure one or more graphics adapters of the same type.

  • A miniport driver can only make calls exported byvideoprt.sys.

    A miniport driver can call only those functions that are exported by the system-supplied video port driver. Driver writers can also use the following to determine which functions a miniport driver is calling:

    link -dump -imports my_driver.sys
    

    A miniport driver cannot load or install another driver on the machine using undocumented operating system function calls.

  • A miniport driver can enable panning only upon receiving an end-user request.

    Panning must be disabled by default. The miniport driver should enable it only when it is requested through a control panel. OEMs can enable panning by default as a part of their preinstall.