Windows Driver Kit (WDK) Documentation Blog : announcement

MSDN Wiki Discontinued for WDK Documentation

wdkblog — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 07:32:00 GMT

We’ve decided to shut off the Community Content (aka “wiki”) section of WDK documentation on MSDN.

A few months ago I provided this blog post, which questioned the usefulness of the Community Content feature for WDK documentation. Your responses to that post, and other feedback that we have received, confirmed our impression that the Community Content feature is providing little value to our customers.

We continue to value your feedback about our documentation. We encourage you to point out errors and provide suggestions, and to send them to us by clicking on the “send feedback” link that’s at the bottom of each topic. The link appears both in the offline documentation that installs with the kit and in the online version on MSDN.

Community Content removal coincides with the Windows 7 RTM update of WDK documentation on MSDN.

— Richard Brown [MSFT], WDK Senior Programming Writer

Do You Have the Very Latest WDK Documentation?

wdkblog — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 01:57:00 GMT

Hopefully you've already downloaded the new Windows 7 version of the WDK, which has all the latest Windows 7 headers, libraries, samples, and test applications: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/DevTools/WDK/WDKpkg.mspx.

We've also released an even later version of the documentation. It has additional topics that we wrote after the rest of the Windows 7 WDK was frozen. A few examples:

· Device and Driver Installation: Device Metadata Packages (three new topics)

· Display: Installing Display Drivers Optimized for Windows 7 and Later

· Network: Wake-on-Wireless LAN

Grab this latest documentation at: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/DevTools/WDK/WDKdocs.mspx#.

To view all the new Windows 7 material, in the Table of Contents click on New Information -> New for Windows 7.

－ Mark Lawler [MSFT], WDK Programming Writer

New for Windows 7: Mobile Broadband Miniport Driver Documentation

wdkblog — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:38:00 GMT

Windows 7 has added new device driver interfaces (DDIs) to provide support for Mobile Broadband (MB) devices, beginning with Windows 7 Beta.

MB miniport drivers are based on the NDIS 6.20 model. You can learn more about NDIS 6.20 at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd568055.aspx.

The MB DDIs consist of 21 new OIDs, 20 new NDIS status notifications specific to MB, and their associated structures and enumerations including:

Features to describe the class of MB device, such as CDMA-based (1xRTT/1xEV-DO/1xEV-DO RevA/1xEvDO RevB) or GSM-based (GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/HSPA), and its capabilities
WWAN network registration and service activation
Packet data service
Data service handoff
SMS messaging
Signal strength feedback
Vendor-specific features

To learn more about writing an MB miniport driver for Windows 7, go to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd445701.aspx.

See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd446088.aspx for the MB reference documentation.

-- Kevin Shirley [MSFT], Programming Writer

Windows 7 RC WDK Documentation Refresh with Improved Feedback Link

wdkblog — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:18:00 GMT

The WDKUA team is pleased to announce that we have refreshed the WDK documentation for Windows 7 RC on MSDN. You can view the documentation at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa972908.aspx

We have also provided an improved feedback mechanism with this documentation refresh. Near the bottom of each WDK documentation topic is a “Send feedback on this topic” link. You can use the link to provide targeted topic feedback to the WDK documentation team. Please note that while we attempt to address relevant submissions in a timely manner, it may take awhile for us to update any given topic.

The Windows 7 RC WDK documentation has also been posted on WHDC. You can download it at: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/DevTools/WDK/WDKdocs.mspx

－Kevin Shirley [MSFT], WDK Programming Writer

Announcement: New Features for Registry Callbacks for Vista SP2

wdkblog — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 11:59:00 GMT

Microsoft developers have upgraded and improved the Registry Callback feature of the Windows Driver Model (WDM). They have added 6 enumerations and 3 structures to the kernel architecture that will give you more flexibility in working with registry keys for filter drivers. This new capability was added to Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2) at the last minute and was not covered in the original doc release. Now we can tell you about it because the updated header has just been made available on Microsoft Connect. We wanted to publish this special announcement, so you can make use of this new technology right away.

The 6 new enumerations are:

· RegNtPreRestoreKey

· RegNtPostRestoreKey

· RegNtPreSaveKey

· RegNtPostSaveKey

· RegNtPreReplaceKey

· RegNtPostReplaceKey

The 3 new structures are:

· REG_RESTORE_KEY_INFORMATION

· REG_SAVE_KEY_INFORMATION

· REG_REPLACE_KEY_INFORMATION

Detailed technical information can be found in the following WDK kernel reference topics:

· Registry Callback – the new enumerations are listed in this topic.

· REG_NOTIFY_CLASS – this topic defines the enumerations.

· The new structure topics are:

- REG_RESTORE_KEY_INFORMATION

- REG_SAVE_KEY_INFORMATION

- REG_REPLACE_KEY_INFORMATION

These new features are available in the WDK docs on MSDN.

— Seth McEvoy, [MSFT], WDK Programming Writer