Introducing Smart Cards to the System

Before the smart card subsystem can find a smart card, the smart card must be introduced to the system. This is typically done with a smart card setup tool provided by the card manufacturer. The tool could come as a program on a floppy disk (with the smart card), an ActiveX control available on a website, and so on.

The setup tool must provide the following pieces of information about the card:

• Its ATR string, and an optional mask to use as an aid in identifying the card.
• A list of smart card interfaces supported by the card.
• A display name for the card, to be used in identifying the card to the user. In most cases, the user will supply this to the setup tool.
• The primary service provider associated with the card (optional), to be used when accessing the card through COM interfaces.

To simplify setup tools, and to ensure the integrity of the smart card database, the smart card subsystem provides the following two functions. SCardIntroduceCardType introduces a smart card into the database and SCardForgetCardType removes it from the database.