Microsoft Windows contains built-in drivers for many device types. If there is a built-in driver for your device type, you won’t need to write your own driver. Your device can use the built-in driver.
Built-in drivers for USB devices
If your device belongs to a device class that is defined by the USB Device Working Group (DWG), there may already be an existing Windows USB class driver for it. For more information, see Drivers for the Supported USB Device Classes.
Built-in drivers for other devices
Currently, Microsoft provides built-in drivers for the following other types of devices:
Device Technology and Driver
Built-in driver
Windows support
Description
ACPI: ACPI driver
WindowsВ XP and later
Microsoft provides support for basic ACPI device functionality by means of the Acpi.sys driver and ACPI BIOS. To enhance the functionality of an ACPI device, the vendor can supply a WDM function driver. For more information about Windows ACPI support, see Supporting ACPI Devices in the ACPI Design Guide.
Audio: Microsoft Audio Class driver
WindowsВ XP and later
Microsoft provides support for basic audio rendering and audio capture via its Port Class driver (PortCls). It is the responsibility of the hardware vendor of an audio device, to provide an adapter driver to work with PortCls. The adapter driver includes initialization code, driver-management code (including the DriverEntry function) and a collection of audio miniport drivers. For more information, see Introduction to Port Class.
Buses: Native SD bus driver, native SD storage class driver, and storage miniport driver
sdbus.sys, sffdisk.sys, sffp_sd.sys
WindowsВ Vista and later
Microsoft provides support for SD card readers as follows: The operating system provides support for SD host controllers that connect directly to the PCI bus. When the system enumerates an SD host controller, it loads a native SD bus driver (sdbus.sys). If a user inserts an SD memory card, Windows loads a native SD storage class driver (sffdisk.sys) and storage miniport driver (sffp_sd.sys) on top of the bus driver. If a user inserts an SD card with a different kind of function, such as GPS or wireless LAN, Windows loads a vendor-supplied driver for the device.
HID: HID I2C driver
WindowsВ 8 and later
Microsoft provides support for HID over I2C devices on SoC systems that support Simple Peripheral Bus (SPB) and general-purpose I/O (GPIO). It does so by means of the HIDI2C.sys driver. For more information, see HID over I2C.
HID: Legacy game port driver
Windows ServerВ 2003
In Windows Vista and earlier, Microsoft provided support for legacy (non-USB, non-Bluetooth, non-I2C) game ports by means of the HidGame.sys and Gameenum.sys drivers. For more information, see HID Transports Supported in Windows.
HID: Legacy keyboard class driver
WindowsВ XP and later
Microsoft provides support for legacy (non-USB, non-Bluetooth, non-I2C) keyboards by means of the Kbdclass.sys driver. For more information, see Keyboard and mouse HID client drivers. To enhance the functionality of a legacy keyboard, the vendor can supply a keyboard filter driver. For more information, see the Kbfiltr sample.
HID: Legacy mouse class driver
WindowsВ XP and later
Microsoft provides support for legacy (non-USB, non-Bluetooth, non-I2C) mice by means of the Mouclass.sys driver. Keyboard and mouse HID client drivers. To enhance the functionality of a legacy mouse, the vendor can supply a mouse filter driver. For more information, see the Moufiltr sample.
HID: PS/2 (i8042prt) driver
WindowsВ XP and later
Microsoft provides support for legacy PS/2 keyboards and mice by means of the I8042.sys driver. To enhance the functionality of a PS/2 mouse or keyboard, the vendor can supply a keyboard or mouse filter driver. For more information, see the Kbfiltr sample and Moufiltr sample.
Imaging: Web Services for Devices (WSD) scan class driver
WindowsВ Vista and later
Microsoft provides support for web services scanners (that is, scanners that are meant to be used over the web) by means of the WSD scan driver (wsdscan.sys). However, a web services scanner device that supports WSD Distributed Scan Management must implement two web services protocols. For more information, see WIA with Web Services for Devices.
Print: Microsoft Plotter Driver
WindowsВ XP and later
Microsoft provides support for plotters that support the Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language by means of the Microsoft Plotter Driver (Msplot). To enhance the functionality of a plotter, you can create a minidriver, which consists of one or more plotter characterization data (PCD) files. For more information, see Plotter Driver Minidrivers.
Print: Microsoft PostScript Printer Driver
WindowsВ XP and later
Microsoft provides support for PostScript printers by means of the PostScript Printer Driver (Pscript). To enhance the functionality of a PostScript printer, you can create a minidriver, which consists of one or more PostScript Printer Description (PPD) files and font (NTF) files. For more information, see Pscript Minidrivers.
Print: Microsoft Universal Printer Driver
WindowsВ XP and later
Microsoft provides support for non-PostScript printers by means of the Universal Printer Driver (Unidrv). To enhance the functionality of a non-PostScript printer, you can create a minidriver, which consists of one or more generic printer description (GPD) files. For more information, see Microsoft Universal Printer Driver.
Print: Microsoft v4 Printer Driver
WindowsВ 8 and later
Beginning with Windows 8, Microsoft provides a single in-box class driver that supports PostScript and non-PostScript printers as well as plotters. This driver supersedes the Microsoft Plotter Driver, Microsoft Universal Printer Driver, and Microsoft PostScript Printer Driver. Used on its own, without modification, this printer driver provides basic printing support. For more information, see V4 Printer Driver.
Print: Microsoft XPS Printer Driver
WindowsВ Vista and later
Microsoft provides support for printing the XPS document format with the XPS Printer Driver (XPSDrv). This driver extends Microsoft’s GDI-based, version 3 printer driver architecture to support consuming XML Paper Specification (XPS) documents. With an XPSDrv printer driver, the XPS Document format is used as a spool file format and as a document file format. Used on its own, without modification, the XPSDrv printer driver provides support for basic XPS printing. For more information, see XPSDrv Printer Drivers.
Sensors: Sensor HID class driver
WindowsВ 8 and later
Microsoft provides support for motion, activity and other types of sensors by means of a HID class driver. Because WindowsВ 8 includes this HID class driver, along with corresponding HID I2C and HID USB miniport drivers, you do not need to implement your own driver. You only need to report the usages described in this white paper, in the firmware for your sensor. Windows will use your firmware and its own HID driver to enable and initialize your sensor, and then furnish the relevant Windows APIs with access to your sensor.
Touch: Windows pointer device driver
WindowsВ 8 and later
Microsoft provides support for pen and touch devices by means of an HID class driver. Because WindowsВ 8 includes this HID class driver and corresponding HID I2C and HID USB miniport drivers, you do not need to implement your own driver. You only need to report the usages described in this white paper in the firmware for your pointer device. Windows will use your firmware and its own HID driver to enable touch and pointer capabilities for your device and furnish the Windows touch and pointer APIs with access to your device.
WPD: Media Transfer Protocol class driver
WpdMtpDr.dll, WpdMtp.dll,WpdMtpUs.dll, WpdConns.dll, and WpdUsb.sys
WindowsВ Vista and later
Microsoft provides support for portable devices that require connectivity with Windows, such as music players, digital cameras, cellular phones, and health-monitoring devices, by means of the Media Transfer Protocol class driver. A vendor that uses this class driver must implement the MTP class protocol on the device. (For digital still cameras, your MTP implementation should be backward compatible with PTP.) For more information, see Guidance for the Hardware Vendor.
Write a Universal Windows driver (UMDF 2) based on a template
This topic describes how to write a Universal Windows driver using User-Mode Driver Framework (UMDF) 2. You’ll start with a Microsoft Visual Studio template and then deploy and install your driver on a separate computer.
To get started, be sure you have the most recent version of Microsoft Visual StudioВ and the Windows Driver Kit (WDK). For download links, see Download the Windows Driver Kit (WDK).
Debugging Tools for Windows is included when you install the WDK.
Create and build a driver
When you create a new KMDF or UMDF driver, you must select a driver name that has 32 characters or less. This length limit is defined in wdfglobals.h.
Open Visual Studio. On the File menu, choose New > Project.
In the New Project dialog box, in the left pane, go to Visual C++ > Windows Drivers > WDF. Select User Mode Driver (UMDF V2).
In the Name field, enter «UmdfDriver» as the project name.
In the Location field, enter the directory where you want to create the new project.
Check Create directory for solution. Select OK.
Visual Studio creates one project and a solution. You can see them in the Solution Explorer window. (If the Solution Explorer window is not visible, choose Solution Explorer from the View menu.) The solution has a driver project named UmdfDriver. To see the driver source code, open any of the files under Source Files. Driver.c and Device.c are good places to start.
In the Solution Explorer window, select and hold (or right-click) Solution ‘UmdfDriver’ (1 project), and choose Configuration Manager. Choose a configuration and platform for the driver project. For example, choose Debug and x64.
In the Solution Explorer window, select and hold (or right-click) UmdfDriver, and choose Properties. Navigate to Configuration Properties > Driver Settings > General, and note that Target Platform defaults to Universal.
To build your driver, choose Build Solution from the Build menu. Microsoft Visual Studio displays build progress in the Output window. (If the Output window is not visible, choose Output from the View menu.)
Verify that the build output includes:
When you’ve verified that the solution built successfully, you can close Visual Studio.
To see the built driver, in File Explorer, go to your UmdfDriver folder, and then to x64\Debug\UmdfDriver. The directory includes the following files:
UmdfDriver.dll — the user-mode driver file
UmdfDriver.inf — an information file that Windows uses when you install the driver
Deploy and install the Universal Windows driver
Typically when you test and debug a driver, the debugger and driver run on separate computers. The computer that runs the debugger is called the host computer, and the computer that runs the driver is called the target computer. The target computer is also called the test computer.
So far, you’ve used Visual Studio to build a driver on the host computer. Now you need to configure a target computer. Follow the instructions in Provision a computer for driver deployment and testing (WDK 10). Then you’ll be ready to deploy, install, load, and debug your driver:
On the host computer, open your solution in Visual Studio. You can double-click the solution file, UmdfDriver.sln, in your UmdfDriver folder.
In the Solution Explorer window, select and hold (or right-click) UmdfDriver, and choose Properties.
In the UmdfDriver Property Pages window, go to Configuration Properties > Driver Install > Deployment, as shown here.
Check Remove previous driver versions before deployment.
For Target Device Name, select the name of the computer that you configured for testing and debugging.
Select Hardware ID Driver Update, and enter the hardware ID for your driver. In this exercise, the hardware ID is Root\UmdfDriver. Select OK.
NoteВ В In this exercise, the hardware ID does not identify a real piece of hardware. It identifies an imaginary device that will be given a place in the device tree as a child of the root node. For real hardware, do not select Hardware ID Driver Update; instead, select Install and Verify. You can see the hardware ID in your driver’s information (INF) file. In the Solution Explorer window, go to UmdfDriver > Driver Files, and double-click UmdfDriver.inf. The hardware ID is under [Standard.NT$ARCH$].
On the Debug menu, choose Start Debugging, or press F5 on the keyboard.
Wait until your driver has been deployed, installed, and loaded on the target computer. This might take several minutes.
Using the Driver Module Framework (DMF)
The Driver Module Framework (DMF) is an extension to WDF that enables extra functionality for a WDF driver developer. It helps developers write any type of WDF driver better and faster.
DMF as a framework allows creation of WDF objects called DMF Modules. The code for these DMF Modules can be shared between different drivers. In addition, DMF bundles a library of DMF Modules that we have developed for our drivers and feel would provide value to other driver developers.
DMF does not replace WDF. DMF is a second framework that is used with WDF. The developer leveraging DMF still uses WDF and all its primitives to write device drivers.
