Device Drivers:Need Clarification on extension INF ?

NTDEV
1

Hello,
We are working on bringing up the USB device controller on a hardware platform which has the Synopsys USB 3.0 IP. We have been able to successfully bring up the Microsoft provided inbox driver ufxsynopsys.sys on this USB device controller in Windows 10 and Windows 10 IoT core environment. Since the base INF file did not have the VEN ID and DEV ID of the USB device controller we created an extension INF and installed the base driver using Extension INF. The only addition in this extension INF is to give support to the VID and Dev ID of the USB controller which was missing in the base INF . We need clarifications on the below
points:

  1. Do we need to still submit this extension INF to Microsoft for certification?
  2. Who are eligible for submitting the extension INF for certification? Should it always initiate from an IHV or an OEM only?
  3. Can we continue to use this driver without getting the extension INF certified with MSFT
2

Your (extension) INF is part of your driver package. To load your driver on Win10, you will need to have your driver package signed, either by passing the HLK tests or by attestation signing. In either case, this requires uploading (a signed copy of) your driver to the MSFT “dashboard” and downloading from them the signed bits.

WHO signs is entirely up to you. In my experience working with OEMs, it is the IHV that runs/passes the HLKs (they’re the only ones who presumably know enough about the device), and thus it is the IHV that gets the driver (and associated INF) signed.

Peter