RE: status and error reporting to the notification area

You need a bunch of user space infrastructure. Pre-Vista it could be
done with a user space service, but since then since services run in a
session without Windows, you need an application that gets started at
session start to display stuff there.

Don Burn (MVP, Windows DKD)
Windows Filesystem and Driver Consulting
Website: http://www.windrvr.com
Blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/WinDrvr

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@yahoo.com [mailto:xxxxx@yahoo.com]
Posted At: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 2:17 PM
Posted To: ntdev
Conversation: status and error reporting to the notification area
Subject: status and error reporting to the notification area

I’ve noticed some drivers report status to the notification area of
the task
bar on Win 7.
Is this directly available to the drivers or is it done with the help
of a
user .dll?

I realize this feature can quickly saturate the desktop and developers
may
start sending debugging printfs to this interface.

thanks,
massoud

__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus
signature
database 4952 (20100317) __________

The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.

http://www.eset.com

Thanks Don.
It hasn’t gotten any easier.
Perhaps for many good reasons.

It will work but putting up a dialog box on the screen for an
informational only message is a great way to piss off the users. IIRC,
there may be limitations on the status codes allowed.

Don Burn (MVP, Windows DKD)
Windows Filesystem and Driver Consulting
Website: http://www.windrvr.com
Blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/WinDrvr

-----Original Message-----
From: Cay Bremer [mailto:xxxxx@lavabit.com]
Posted At: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 3:14 PM
Posted To: ntdev
Conversation: status and error reporting to the notification area
Subject: Re: status and error reporting to the notification area

Perhaps they use IoRaiseInformationalHardError():
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa490594.aspx
Contrary to the documentation, this function doesn’t seem to be
limited to I/O
statuses only.

On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:17:00 +0100, wrote:
> > I’ve noticed some drivers report status to the notification area of
> > the task bar on Win 7.
> > Is this directly available to the drivers or is it done with the
help
> > of a user .dll?
> >
> > I realize this feature can quickly saturate the desktop and
developers
> > may start sending debugging printfs to this interface.
> >
> > thanks,
> > massoud
>
>
> Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus
signature
> database 4952 (20100317)

>
> The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.
>
> http://www.eset.com
>

At least in Windows XP, this “dialog box” is actually a taskbar
notification when the explorer shell is running. I once tested it with
STATUS_FATAL_APP_EXIT as it allowed me to display any arbitrary string.
This didn’t work in Vista, though.

On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:21:45 +0100, Don Burn wrote:
> It will work but putting up a dialog box on the screen for an
> informational only message is a great way to piss off the users. IIRC,
> there may be limitations on the status codes allowed.
>
>
> Don Burn (MVP, Windows DKD)
> Windows Filesystem and Driver Consulting
> Website: http://www.windrvr.com
> Blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/WinDrvr
>
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Cay Bremer [mailto:xxxxx@lavabit.com]
>> Posted At: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 3:14 PM
>> Posted To: ntdev
>> Conversation: status and error reporting to the notification area
>> Subject: Re: status and error reporting to the notification area
>>
>> Perhaps they use IoRaiseInformationalHardError():
>> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa490594.aspx
>> Contrary to the documentation, this function doesn’t seem to be
> limited to I/O
>> statuses only.
>>
>>
>> On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:17:00 +0100, wrote:
>> > I’ve noticed some drivers report status to the notification area of
>> > the task bar on Win 7.
>> > Is this directly available to the drivers or is it done with the
> help
>> > of a user .dll?
>> >
>> > I realize this feature can quickly saturate the desktop and
> developers
>> > may start sending debugging printfs to this interface.
>> >
>> > thanks,
>> > massoud