Developing Windows NT Device Drivers: A Programmer's Handbook (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Joseph M. Newcomer (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Developing Windows NT Device Drivers is an authoritative and clearly written resource on how to write device drivers for Windows NT. The book begins with an excellent high-level overview of how Windows NT device drivers work and how to create them. The text concentrates on "generic" device drivers written in C and excludes specialized drivers for graphics, file system, and network hardware.

Eventually, the book turns to device registers, device memory, and different PC busses (such as PCI). A section on I/O Request Packets (IRPs) and interrupt handling within Windows NT shows how to do asynchronous I/O. The authors offer a simple "Hello World" example for a device driver and present various debugging techniques.

Subsequent chapters deepen the reader's knowledge on topics such as device I/O, synchronization (including spin locks), device-driver initialization and cleanup, and direct memory access (DMA). These chapters also instruct you on how to access hardware ports and interrupt processing (a crucial topic) and how to move device memory into system memory (along with a working example). Discussion of more specialized topics--ISA and PCI busses, serialization, driver threads, and the advantages of the new "layered" driver model--follows.

Authors Edward Dekker and Joseph M. Newcomer offer plenty of excellent real-world advice. (Material on how to log device-driver events and manage the infamous Windows "Blue Screen of Death" is indispensable.) They present a "hardware simulator" that lets readers develop device drivers without an actual hardware device. The book closes with information on Windows 2000, universal serial bus (USB) devices, the Win32 driver model, and over 300 pages of reference material, including device-driver kernel functions. Overall, this comprehensive text provides a solid introduction to the way Windows NT device drivers interact with hardware; it gives you all you need to start building custom device drivers. --Richard Dragan

Review

"A gentle introduction... an attempt to encapsulate everything and will be fairly high in the pile of documentation on your workbench" -- Dr. Dobb's Electronic Review of Computer Books

Read the full review for this book.

Compared to other Windows NT device-driver development books, Developing Windows NT Device Drivers is hardware-oriented. A lot of real hardware-related information is presented, including small circuit diagrams and views about throwing hardware at debug problems with extender cards and bus/logic analyzers using products from various tool vendors such as Vmetro and Catalyst Enterprises. A lot of products are mentioned, including libraries and debugging tools from vendors such as Bluewater Systems and Compuware/NuMega.

Dekker and Newcommer could have subtitled this book, "My life in device-driver development." There are a lot of digressions, including brief and mostly interesting references to DEC system-10, RS/6000, Windows 3.x, CP/M, and a CMU symmetric multiprocessor research project. Everything related to driver development gets a mention, even if briefly, according to the authors, "for completeness." The authors appear to be quite fond of footnotes, many of which are off topic comments. A lot of the asides include general advice, from which compiler to use (Microsoft will have no sympathy, if you don't use Visual C++) to which books to read on specific buses. (They like the mindshare books, as do I.) The authors are adamant on some subjects such as ISA plug-and-play (just don't do it) and Hungarian notation. I never trust other people's code and take it at face value. If you don't like Hungarian notation, ignore it. --Regan Russell, Dr. Dobb's Electronic Review of Computer Books -- Dr. Dobb's Electronic Review of Computer Books

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 1280 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional (April 9, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201695901
• ISBN-13: 978-0201695908
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.4 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,134,108 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One of the bests, October 31, 1999

By A Customer

I have written some VxDs before I read this book. And the book introduced fairly well about the writing NT device drivers. And I had the confidence that I could wirte the driver right away once I read the book. But, it seems somewhat difficult for the beginners because it misses the detailed explanation for some issues. I guess the authors of the book should have spent some more pages for vitual memory and multi-processors when the book got already more than 1000 pages. Some more pages won't kill.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Savior, May 16, 2001

By	"michaelsft" (Maryland USA) - See all my reviews

I'm a high school intern and I knew nothing about drivers (other than installing them) 3 months ago. Now I have completed 2, an ISA and Parallel port driver. This book is really great for people new to the DDK and need a good foundation. The examples are clear, and the pace of the book is pretty slow (but steady). Once you get past the first 9-10 chapters you can pretty much skim for parts you need. The tips are especially helpful, as to why C++ OOP isn't suitable, to why 2 computers are absolutely necessary. Even if you plan on making WDM drivers, this book will be helpful. Oney's WDM book is really useless for beginners, and the DDK almost has no redeeming value, other than being very very heavy (oh, wait thats not good either). The net is surprisingly lacking of driver programming pages. Get this book.

18 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Note: The Book does not cover many types of drivers!, July 28, 2000

By	Hector Santos (HOMESTEAD, FL USA) - See all my reviews

I just received the book and I immediately turned to the index to search for NETWORK DRIVERS. Nope. Well, the introduction chapter will tell you "what we don't cover" (this important omission should of been mentioned in the online book excerpts):

The book does not cover: File Drivers, Network Drivers, Graphic Drivers and User Mode Drivers.

One would think that in this day of age of Communications, High End Speed Games, etc, that a rather large book titled "Developing Windows NT Device Drivers" would cover these important device drivers. At a minimum, its should of covered NDIS Device Drivers. It does not.