The Windows 2000 Device Driver Book: A Guide for Programmers (2nd Edition)

Most chapters in this book include one or more sample drivers. All code is included on the accompanying CD. Samples for each chapter are in separate subdirectories on the CD, so installation of individual projects is straightforward.

The CD also includes a device driver application wizard for Microsoft Visual C++ version 6. This wizard configures the build environment so that code can be written, compiled, and linked within Visual Studio.

Platform dependencies:

The sample code included with this book has been targeted and tested on Intel platforms only. Since it appears that the last non-Intel platform (Alpha) was dropped from the final release of Windows 2000, this should come as no surprise. Be advised, however, that Windows 2000 is intrinsically a platform-independent OS. It is a straightforward process to port the OS to many modern hardware sets. Driver writers should consider designs that take advantage of the Windows 2000 abstractions that permit source compatibility with non-Intel platforms.

To build and run the examples:

Besides the Microsoft DDK (Device Driver Kit) (which is available on an MSDN subscription or, at present, free for download from the Microsoft web site at http://www.microsoft.com/DDK), the sample code assumes that Microsoft Visual C++ is installed. The device driver application wizard was built for Visual Studio version 6. Obviously, with some effort the sample code can be built using other vendors' compilers.

Of course, an installed version of Windows 2000 (Professional, Server, or Enterprise) is required. For interactive debugging using WinDbg, a second host platform is required.