“Chishiki” is Japanese for “knowledge.” e-chishiki.com aims to bring software developers, information security professionals, IT executives and other IT pros a rich body of knowledge in the form of articles, interviews, tutorials and technical discussions. Our contributors are among the biggest names in the Indian IT industry and include noted authors, educators and practitioners.
Windows Device Driver Programming Series
A Windows Device Driver Primer (1/10): Introduction
Yashavant Kanetkar and Asang Dani
Microsoft's Solution
To address the problems mentioned in the previous section, Microsoft has come up with the following solution:
Microsoft has partnered with several OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) like HP, Epson, and IBM. The OEMs are deemed responsible for creating the individual device drivers for their devices and these device drivers are shipped along with the Windows OS.
Though shipped with OS, these device drivers are not made part of the OS. This way, once the OS has been installed, if a new device is attached to the system, then the device driver for the new device has to be installed to be able to use the device.
Since individual device drivers are likely to be developed by different OEMs, Microsoft has evolved a standard model for creating device drivers. This model is called the Windows Driver Model or WDM.
