I know this is going to sound like I’m “feathering my own nest” but that’s really not my goal here. Instead, I’m trying my best to keep the unwary from getting themselves (and their projects) screwed by rushing in where angels fear to tread. Over on our NTDEV list, we regularly get driver development questions […]
Windows 10 WDK + Visual Studio 2015 Issues
Now that the WDK is tightly integrated with Visual Studio, an update to the WDK can also mean an that a new version of Visual Studio is required. That’s the case for the Windows 10 WDK: You’ll need to install Visual Studio 2015 to be able to use the Windows 10 WDK. The good news is […]
Questions and Answers: Windows 10 Driver Signing
Update (2 June 2016): Traditional cross-signing works for all Windows versions prior to Windows 10 Anniversary Update and Windows Server 2016. Whether you need a SHA1 or SHA2 certificate depends on the version of Windows. All versions of Windows from Windows 7 onward, when properly updated, will accept SHA2 certificates. You do not need to SIGN with an EV certificate, but you’ll need an […]
Newbie Corner: Breaking Windows
One of my favorite parts of learning a new programming model is learning what happens when something fails. Getting a simple program built and running is fun and all, but until you dig in to a serious project you don’t realize what the repercussions are for your stupid blindly obvious mistakes. Once you do make […]
Newbie Corner: The Newbie Gets a Taste of Architecture
A few weeks ago, I was in Virginia taking the Windows Internals and Software Drivers seminar put on by (you guessed it) OSR. It turns out we train our own engineers in the same way that we train others, and I’m really glad I was able to go. Software architecture is a funny thing. I’m […]
Newbie Corner: There’s a type for that! The Unexpected World of Windows Kernel Types
This post is the first in a series from our newest Software Design Engineer, Chris Barr. Chris has lots of cool low level programming experience (including UEFI), though not necessarily on Windows. We’ve asked him to post about anything that comes across as interesting, unexpected, fun, or strange while learning Windows kernel mode development. It’s […]
Binary Literals in VS2015 — I Can’t Wait!
There are a couple of feature of C/C++ in Visual Studio 2015 that are easy to overlook, but that I’m really looking forward to using. Two of those features that I’m most eagerly anticipating are support for binary literals and digit separators. Together, these promise to make life easier for Windows driver developers.
Windows 10 Preview WDK and HLK Now Available for Download
As promised at WinHEC, Microsoft has made available the first generally available pre-releases of the Windows 10 WDK and Hardware Lab Kit (WLK). The kits are available here: http://dev.windows.com/en-US/featured/hardware/windows-10-hardware-preview-tools Also available (from the same page) are VS 2015 CTP 6 and the pre-release of the Win10 SDK (both of which you’ll need for the Win 10 […]
Another Tiny SBC that Runs Windows
If you follow the goings-on in the world of little single board computers (SBCs), you surely noticed last week’s announcement by Qualcomm of the DragonBoard 410C. This ARM-based board includes a 64-bit capable Snapdragon 410 processor, 1GB LPDDR3, and 4GB of eMMC memory. There’s an onb-ard MicroSD slot. It has Bluetooth LE, GPS, and WiFi […]
Windows Everywhere… and Your Driver Too: Universal Drivers
Windows 8 ushered-in a new era of Windows mobile devices, including phones and tablets. Windows 10 promises to converge these systems further, and to extend Windows to even more resource and cost constrained devices and the Internet of Things (IoT). Support for x86 and ARM will span all these categories. It seems we really are on the […]
OSR Open Systems Resources, Inc.