Windows® Internals, Sixth Edition, Part 2

The following screen shows the selection combo box of the Details tab expanded to reveal the types of information you can access:

Using the ClassGUID value, the PnP manager locates the device’s class key under HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class. The keyboard class key is shown in Figure 8-43. The enumeration key and class key supply the PnP manager with the information it needs to load the drivers necessary for the device’s devnode. Drivers are loaded in the following order:

Any lower-level filter drivers specified in the LowerFilters value of the device’s enumeration key.

Any lower-level filter drivers specified in the LowerFilters value of the device’s class key.

The function driver specified by the Service value in the device’s enumeration key. This value is interpreted as the driver’s key under HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services.

Any upper-level filter drivers specified in the UpperFilters value of the device’s enumeration key.

Any upper-level filter drivers specified in the UpperFilters value of the device’s class key.

Figure 8-43. Keyboard class key

In all cases, drivers are referenced by the name of their key under HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services.

Note

The WDK refers to a device’s enumeration key as its hardware key and to the class key as the software key.

The keyboard device shown in Figure 8-40 and Figure 8-43 has no lower-level filter drivers. The function driver is the i8042prt driver, and there are two upper-level filter drivers specified in the keyboard’s class key: kbdclass and vmkbd2.

Driver Installation

If the PnP manager encounters a device for which no driver is installed, it relies on the user-mode PnP manager to guide the installation process. If the device is detected during the system boot, a devnode is defined for the device, but the loading process is postponed until the user-mode PnP manager starts. (The user-mode PnP manager is implemented in %SystemRoot%\System32\Umpnpmgr.dll and runs in a service hosting process (Svchost.exe).)

The components involved in a driver’s installation are shown in Figure 8-44. Dark-shaded objects in the figure correspond to components generally supplied by the system, whereas lighter-shaded objects are those included in a driver’s installation files. First, a bus driver informs the PnP manager of a device it enumerates using a DIID (1). The PnP manager checks the registry for the presence of a corresponding function driver, and when it doesn’t find one, it informs the user-mode PnP manager (2) of the new device by its DIID. The user-mode PnP manager first tries to perform an automatic install without user intervention. If the installation process involves the posting of dialog boxes that require user interaction and the currently logged-on user has administrator privileges, (3) the user-mode PnP manager launches the Rundll32.exe application (the same application that hosts Control Panel utilities) to execute the Hardware Installation Wizard (%SystemRoot%\System32\Newdev.dll). If the currently logged-on user doesn’t have administrator privileges (or if no user is logged on) and the installation of the device requires user interaction, the user-mode PnP manager defers the installation until a privileged user logs on. The Hardware Installation Wizard uses Setupapi.dll and CfgMgr32.dll (configuration manager) API functions to locate INF files that correspond to drivers that are compatible with the detected device. This process might involve having the user insert installation media containing a vendor’s INF files, or the wizard might locate a suitable INF file in the driver store (%SystemRoot%\System32\DriverStore) that contains drivers that ship with Windows or others that are downloaded through Windows Update. Installation is performed in two steps. In the first, the third-party driver developer imports the driver package into the driver store, and in the second step, the system performs the actual installation, which is always done through the %SystemRoot%\System32\Drvinst.exe process.

Figure 8-44. Driver installation components

To find drivers for the new device, the installation process gets a list of hardware IDs and compatible IDs from the bus driver. These IDs describe all the various ways the hardware might be identified in a driver installation file (.inf). The lists are ordered so that the most specific description of the hardware is listed first. If matches are found in multiple INFs, more precise matches are preferred over less precise matches, digitally signed INFs are preferred over unsigned ones, and newer signed INFs are preferred over older signed ones. If a match is found based on a compatible ID, the Hardware Installation Wizard can choose to prompt for media in case a more up-to-date driver came with the hardware.