c++ - Getting Started on Driver Development - Stack Overflow 18/07/2019, 3+49 PM

Getting Started on Driver Development [closed]

Does anyone have any books/tutorials which may be useful in getting started in Windows
device driver development?
20 For plain Win32/GUI development, Petzold's book seems to be the essential reference. Does
such exist for drivers?

I would like to note that I'm not actually talking to hardware -- I actually want to emulate a
piece of hardware in software, but I'd like to see how things work in general first.
21
Billy3

c++ windows driver

asked May 18 '09 at 3:34

Billy ONeal
73.7k 37 269 494

closed as off-topic by Pang, Yu Hao, Mark Rotteveel, Mi-Creativity, S.L. Barth Feb 14 '16
at 10:53
This question appears to be off-topic. The users who voted to close gave this specific reason:

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5 Answers

One thing to beware of is the device driver development (architecture and tools) changes
more than Win32 development ... so while Petzold's book from the 1990s is fine for Win32
11 and may be considered a timeless classic, the architecture for many kinds of drivers (printer
drivers, network drivers, etc.) has varied in various O/S releases.

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Here's a blog entry which reviews various books: Windows Device Drivers Book Reviews.

Don't forget the microsoft documentation included with the DDK: and, most importantly, the
sample drivers (source code) included with the DDK. When I wanted to write a mock serial
port driver, for example, I found the sample serial driver documentation combined with the
DDK documentation was invaluable (and sufficient).

answered May 18 '09 at 3:53

ChrisW
46.5k 10 89 189

I'd also add that it's a good idea to subscribe to the ntdev mailing list (osronline.com/cf.cfm?
PageURL=showlists.CFM?list=NTDEV) because it can be a great source of information, as well as
pointing out common mistakes. – BCran Sep 19 '10 at 10:31

Before anything you must familiar with Operating system concept and after that you must familiar
with windows OS(read Mark Russinovich's windows internal) – AminM May 1 '13 at 13:09

To learn kernel development well:

a. lots of samples kernel programs:

6
By using our site, you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Cookie Policy, Privacy Policy, and
Windows DDK sample:
our Terms of Service.

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/softwaretesting/thread/08690203-1757-4129-
b59a-6bae10bcdce8/

WDK samples:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg487428

Or just search:

http://www.google.com/search?q=windows+ddk+samples

(because above URL may change, but Google will likely to return u the most
appropriate/reachable one)

b. lots of debugging techniques, and among which I found the best is VMware (or VirtualBox)
+ windbg + serial port debugging:

http://www.google.com/search?q=windbg+vmware+kernel+debug

and this paper is classic for using VMWare + windbg (Lord of the Ring0):

http://silverstr.ufies.org/lotr0/windbg-vmware.html

c. as well as system admin tools which others have built:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb545021

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(In the past called SysInternals built by Mark Russinovich, co-author of "Windows Internal" -
MUST READ!!)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963901

from these tools u have will immense debugging options.

d. Join the OSR mailing list (ntdev especially is very active, but there are others like windbg):

http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer

e. Watch lots of video related to windows + kernel at channel9 (google returned over 1000
links):

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:channel9.msdn.com+kernel+video&num=100

f. Discussion forum like:

http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-us/kernel/threads

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/wdk/threads

Subscribed to the free OSR magazine too (hardcopy). I have received mine since 1998 till now
- and it is delivered half-way round the earth!

edited May 20 '11 at 8:41 answered May 20 '11 at 8:20

Peter Teoh
3,793 1 30 45

I would search for tutorials with rich examples, like this one. The essence in windows driver
development is to get the picture about layers and IRPs, IRQLs, and also to know terms like
1 filter drivers. If you are looking for example codes, here is my Spodek driver code: sf.net link.
You will find there a filter driver (for keyboard, keyb.c), kernel space queue (queue.c) and
techniques to hide presence in system. It's a legacy (sys) driver though.

answered May 18 '09 at 8:25

anon

You should probably use the quite recent Windows Driver Foundation (WDF) framework
instead of the older WDM framework. A good starting point is reading the WDF Overview
1 Word documents.

If you want to read a book, "Developing Drivers with the Windows Driver Foundation" is the
one you are looking for.

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answered Jan 18 '10 at 10:38

Taneli Waltari
667 3 5

Too bad I have to support Win2k :( – Billy ONeal Jan 19 '10 at 5:10

Personally the best way to start developing is by real-world exposure. Having this in mind I'd
recomment this book
1
The Rootkit Arsenal: Escape and Evasion in the Dark Corners of the System

It should be enough to get you started to have some code running which does "something"
then after you have the general picture you might dwell on topics such as - Difference between
Buffered/Neither/Direct methods and the peculiarities associated with them.

"Programming the windows driver model, 2nd edition" is also a great help when you need
details regarding some specific topics. But first I believe the most important thing is to put
things into context and then build on that.

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edited Dec 1 '13 at 13:02 answered Jul 29 '11 at 18:35

AminM LordDoskias
1,139 2 23 38 2,452 2 23 39

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