Writing Windows WDM Device Drivers (Paperback)

by Chris Cant (Author) "In this book, I will tell you how to write some types of device driver for Windows..." (more)
Key Phrases: Visual Studio, Device Manager, Windows Management Instrumentation (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Aimed at the more experienced Windows C/C++ programmer, Writing Windows WDM Device Drivers provides an up-to-the-minute guide to writing drivers that conform to the new Windows 2000 driver standard. This well-paced and informative guide offers numerous excellent tips, including how to design device drivers that fit your needs, and a good deal of material on how to test and debug driver code.

Two standout sections help make this title successful. First the author describes the WDM model in detail and explains that it isn't always necessary to write your own custom device driver. (Author Chris Cant discusses when to consider off-the-shelf drivers or when to script standard drivers from Microsoft, instead of writing your own. If you do decide to go for a custom driver, Cant's simple generic drivers will help get you started.)

The second strength of this book is its discussion of a variety of techniques for testing and debugging device drivers (traditionally, a tough nut to crack since device drivers work so close to hardware). The book provides a debug driver (which allows you to log messages from other drivers), plus a number of useful tips on installing, testing, and debugging drivers, including logging events with Windows.

Fast-paced and informative, this book is a thorough guide to virtually every aspect of today's WDM device drivers, including APIs like Plug and Play, ACPI for power management, and working with USB devices. Programming device drivers is still tough, but Writing Windows WDM Device Drivers delivers all that you need to design, code, and test custom device drivers successfully. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: Windows Driver Model (WDM) basics, device driver components, off-the-shelf drivers, standard drivers, designing device drivers, kernel calls, I/O Request Packet (IRP) processing, WDM driver development tools and utilities, testing and debugging techniques, installation, dispatch routines, plug-and-play support, power management and Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI), Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), event logging, sample generic drivers, interrupt handling, Windows NT hardware, system drivers, USB and USB Driver Interface (USBDI), and the Human Input Device (HID) model.

Product Description
This book teaches the reader about the hardware interface recently introduced for Microsoft Windows, including both the Win32 Driver Model (WDM) and the Windows NT kernel device driver. It offers an overview of driver development, including hardware and software interface issues, appropriate application of driver types, and descriptions of where drivers fit in the new "layer" model of WDM.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 540 pages
• Publisher: CMP (January 7, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879305657
• ISBN-13: 978-0879305659
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #713,835 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great entry point for beginners., June 15, 2001

By	"jims_nickname" (Bensalem, PA United States) - See all my reviews

I needed to write a Windows device driver to do parallel port I/O on NT machines and handle hardware interrupts. The DDK is incomprehensible to novices. The Viscarola / Mason book is a great reference, but is not a good how-to. Oney has lots of important information on lots of important topics, but you can quickly get lost in tons of details that don't apply to the task at hand. Chris Cant gets it right in his book. His pedagogical strategy is to actually create a very small device driver, and then study it as you layer on the complexity, and not hit you with it all at once. It exactly addressed my primary needs. Its drawback is that it is not very detailed, nor is it a good advanced reference, so the ideal solution is to get all three books, and use them each for their own strength. But start with Chris Cant's. (He also includes a couple of very useful utilities, one of which is a marvelous debugging tool.)

36 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not a very good book for non USB driver writers, October 27, 1999

By	Chris Grove - See all my reviews

I purchased this book back in July when no other WDM books were available. Overall, I found the book didn't answer any of my concerns and was considerably lacking details for non-USB drivers. For example, there is no explaination on controling DMA transfers. All my NT driver books, have an entire chapter devoted to the subject! The PNP section was repetive but not clear. Overall, not a very good driver book.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars full of errors, July 24, 2003

By A Customer

get Oney's book instead - it's more readable and the examples actually work...