From the Editor In this issue we talk about the recently implemented content-rating and customer-feedback tool now included at the bottom of every Web page on the Windows Hardware Developer Central (WHDC) Web site. Many of you already have noticed this new feature and have responded with a lot of great input that we are using to improve WHDC and the content we provide. Also in this issue, we highlight several of the updates we've made in response to your feedback, other recently published content on WHDC, recent blog posts, and WDK and Windows Logo Program news. As always, we hope you find this information useful. Keep the feedback coming! - The WHDC Web Team
Top Story We're Listening! Updates to WHDC Based On Your Feedback Earlier this year, the WHDC team added the ability for visitors to rate the content on a WHDC page and provide feedback in text. We have enjoyed hearing from you whether you are complimenting or critiquing what you see on the site and in our content. The best feedback is specific feedback. The more specific you can be, the more likely we will be able to act on your input. To prove the point, following is a selection of updates we have made in response to your feedback. Windows Logo Program for Hardware FAQ
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/winlogo/logofaq.mspx
Added a few questions about getting started, how to qualify a device without a category, and how to qualify a lot of different devices. Using PowerCfg to Evaluate System Energy Efficiency
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/pnppwr/powermgmt/powercfg.mspx
Added information stating that the Energy-report.html file cannot be opened by Internet Explorer if it is located in C:\Windows\System32. File System Minifilter Allocated Altitudes
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/driver/filterdrv/alloc-alt.mspx
Updated the file system minifilter allocated altitudes list with the latest altitude allocations as of April 2010. Driver Install Frameworks Overview
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/driver/install/difxtools.mspx
Added information on where to get the DIFx tools. Driver Verifier in Windows Vista
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/tools/vistaverifier.mspx
Driver Verifier in Windows 7
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/tools/Win7DriverVer.mspx
Added links to information on how to access and best leverage Driver Verifier in Windows. Thank you for helping to make WHDC a better and more useful place for you and the entire Windows hardware community. Keep the feedback coming!
Recently Published on WHDC MTP Device Services for Windows This paper describes the services that Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) device services support on systems that run Windows 7. MTP device services provide a framework for extending the functionality of the Windows Portable Devices (WPD) framework and provide new APIs that applications use to discover and access the extended functionality. Read more: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/wpd/MTP-DevServ_Win7.mspx
MTP Device Services Extension Specification The MTP device services extension to the Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) helps an MTP initiator to find and access certain types of content that is stored on a responder (device). These mechanisms provide greater extensibility than the existing datacode mechanisms. This specification is for device manufacturers that are building MTP-compatible devices. It assumes that the reader is familiar with Windows Portable Devices (WPD) technology and the USB Media Transfer Protocol Specification, Revision 1.0. This revision includes the following updated information: - Expanded description of MTP device services fundamentals.
- Added abstract services.
- Expanded the updated behaviors for non-service MTP operations.
- Updated the extension implementation, including a new GetFormatCapabilities operation and a new UseDeviceStage property.
- Added a "Resources" section.
- Added numbers to the section headings for ease of reference.
Read more: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/wpd/MTPDevServExt_Spec.mspx
Generic Identity Device Specification: Version 1.0 This document specifies the profile (the card edge and the data model) that can be supported by a physical identity device such as a smart card that fully complies with ISO/IEC 7816. Read more: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/input/smartcard/GIDS.mspx
Configuring Windows HotStart Windows HotStart in the Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating systems provides built-in support for launching applications directly from system startup. Windows HotStart takes advantage of existing support in Windows Vista and Windows 7 for OnNow power management initiatives and technologies, including the platform sleep states and wake capabilities that are defined by the ACPI specification and supported by the Windows Driver Model (WDM), the underlying operating system, and platform hardware. Manufacturers can take advantage of Windows HotStart to add consumer-friendly application-access buttons through chassis front panels or infrared (IR) remote controls to their system designs. A common example of such a control is a media playback button that starts or wakes the computer and immediately (as soon as the system is running) presents the user with a media player or dedicated media shell. This paper describes how to enable and configure Windows HotStart, troubleshoot Windows HotStart implementations, and use Windows HotStart for Microsoft media applications. Read more: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/firmware/hotstart.mspx
What's New in Blogs for Hardware and Driver Developers "Pushing the Limits of Windows: USER and GDI Objects - Part 2" by Mark Russinovich in "Mark's Blog" Last time, I covered the limits and how to measure usage of one of the two key window manager resources, USER objects. This time, I'm going to cover the other key resource, GDI objects. As always, I recommend you read the previous posts before this one, because some of the limits related to USER and GDI resources are based on limits I've covered... Read more: http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2010/03/31/3322423.aspx
"Developing Your First Sensor Driver - Part 1" and "Developing Your First Sensor Driver - Part 2" in the "Sensor and Location Platform Team Blog" The Windows Driver Kit (WDK) is a great place to get started when writing your first sensor driver. In this post we will take a look at the Sensor Driver Skeleton Sample, which provides a basic sensor driver template. A future post will investigate the Time Sensor Sample to learn about incorporating events. If you have the WDK installed, the source is located under WDKInstallPath\src\SensorsAndLocation. For more in-depth information, the WDK Sensor Devices section of MSDN includes a design guide, valuable sensor references, and information about the two sensor driver samples. Read more: Part 1: http://blogs.msdn.com/sensorslocation/archive/2010/03/23/developing-your-first-sensor-driver-part-1.aspx; Part 2: http://blogs.msdn.com/sensorslocation/archive/2010/03/30/developing-your-first-sensor-driver-part-2.aspx
"Known Hardware Issues - April 2010" in the "Microsoft Windows Core USB Team Blog" We are starting a new blog series called "Known Hardware Issues" where we will try to inform the industry about issues in USB hardware (USB controllers, chipset, firmware, device) that leads to operating system crash. This blog talks about two such issues: - BUGCODE_USB_DRIVER (0xFE) crash on systems that has certain AMD EHCI controllers
- DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE (0x9F) crash on HP ProLiant DL385 G2 server
Read more: http://blogs.msdn.com/usbcoreblog/archive/2010/04/16/known-hardware-issues-april-2010.aspx
"Dynamic Memory Coming to Hyper-V Part 3..." by Jeff Woolsey in the "Microsoft Virtualization Team Blog" Memory Overcommit, an Overloaded Term: When it comes to virtualization and memory, I regularly hear the term "memory overcommit" used as if it's a single technology. The problem is that there are numerous techniques that can be employed to more efficiently use memory which has led to much confusion. Some customers think page sharing equals overcommit. Others think second level paging equals memory overcommit and so on... Memory overcommit simply means to allocate more memory resources than are physically present. In a physical (non-virtualized) environment, the use of paging to disk is an example of memory overcommit. Now that we've defined it, I'm done using this term to avoid the aforementioned confusion. From here on, I'm going to refer to specific memory techniques. Read more: http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2010/04/07/dynamic-memory-coming-to-hyper-v-part-3.aspx
New Things Happening with the WDK "WDK Documentation Republished on MSDN" by Jim Travis in the "WDK Documentation Blog" Over the past few days, Microsoft has republished all of the Windows Driver Kit (WDK) documentation on MSDN Library. This act was the culmination of over six months of work to move our source docs to a different, XML-based content management and authoring system (the same one that's been in use by the Windows SDK team for some time). In addition to providing us with an improved authoring and content management system, this migration brings several benefits for you. These benefits include updated syntax and header information, better abstracts for search results, and cleaner formatting of the content. Read more: http://blogs.msdn.com/wdkdocs/archive/2010/03/30/wdk-documentation-republished-on-msdn.aspx Go to the WDK documentation on MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff557573(VS.85).aspx
Windows Logo Program News New Windows Error Reporting Agreement Version 1.3 Now Available
The new Windows Error Reporting Agreement version 1.3 is now available for signing on the Windows Quality Online Services (Winqual) Web site (https://winqual.microsoft.com/ ). The new agreement addresses two sections of the previous agreement. It eliminates the six-month time period for use of information that is not personally identifiable; and also adds the ability for companies to submit public symbol files to enhance problem identification and prioritization. Note: You must sign the new Windows Error Reporting Agreement version 1.3 by May 1, 2010, in order to access Windows Error Reporting (WER) data after that date.
Reminder About New Requirements for June 2010 The Windows Logo Program team would like to remind partners about new requirements that go into effect June 1, 2010. The tests that validate these new requirements are in Windows Logo Kit 1.5: - CONNECT-0091: Near Field Communication (NFC) radio is compliant with the publicly available Near Field Communication specification V1.0
- CONNECT-0123: USB devices should allow the Operating System to load an alternate driver on device
- CONNECT-0125: USB Host Controllers can achieve at least 60% of their transfer speeds as defined in the respective specification (USB 2.0 or 3.0 spec
- CONNECT-0126: All USB devices and host controllers work properly upon resume from sleep, hibernation or restart without a forced reset of the USB host controller
- DISPLAY-0111: Display device implements the EDID data structure
- DISPLAY-0113: Network Enabled Projectors display basic connection information on the startup splash screen when no input signal is detected
- DISPLAY-0114: Network Enabled Projectors automatically display network input on client connection when there is no existing input signal
- IMAGING-0051: Scanners and multi-function printers with scanning ability are required to implement the WIA 2.0 driver architecture, on all local buses implemented on the device (USB, IEEE 1394, etc.) according to the guidelines set out in the Windows Driver Kit
- INPUT-0051: The KVM Switchbox must correctly provide the Extended Display Identification Data (EDID) received from the connected monitor to all PCs connected to it
- INPUT-0052: The KVM switchbox detects the presence or absence of a physical monitor connected to it
NETMEDIA-0036: Digital Media Servers (DMS) support for MP3 audio streaming - NETMEDIA-0037: DMS supports popular MP4 video formats
- NETMEDIA-0039: Digital Media Servers (DMS) must support popular AVI video formats
- NETMEDIA-0049: Digital Media Servers (DMS) must be able to stream JPG media profiles as specified in the DLNA 1.5 media formats specification
- NETMEDIA-0050: Digital Media Renderer (DMR) DIDL-Lite size requirements
- NETMEDIA-0051: Digital Media Renderers (DMR) re-register with Windows Mediasupport for WMDRM-ND LINK PROTECTION SYSTEM
- NETMEDIA-0057: Digital Media Renderer SetAVTansportURI Robustness
- NETMEDIA-0062: Digital Media Renderer (DMR) playback requirement in stopped state
- NETWORK-0294: Ethernet devices that implement TCP Chimney must properly handle the Out Of Order data scenarios
- NETWORK-0295: Host Firewalls must allow mobile broadband devices that are compliant with Windows mobile broadband driver model to function correctly
- STORAGE-0024: ATA/ATAPI based devices meet Microsoft and ATA/ATAPI protocol requirements (Effective June 2010)
- STORAGE-0026: Optical Drives meet Industry and Microsoft standards (Effective June 2010)
- STREAM-0021: Digital TV Tuner uses the Broadcast Driver Architecture (BDA)
- STREAM-0082: Video streaming communication device produces acceptable frame rate
- STREAM-0083: Video streaming communication device produces acceptable image geometry
- STREAM-0084: Video streaming communication device produces acceptable image radiometry
- STREAM-0085: Video streaming communication device produces acceptable image uniformity
- SYSFUND-0193: Systems that include Wireless USB radios use WHCI radios
- SYSFUND-0218: Desktop systems must have at least one digital video connector
For the latest Windows Logo Program news, subscribe to the Windows Logo Program Newsletter (http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/newsreq.mspx).
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