Do I need to reboot everytime I update my driver?

WINDBG
1

Hi,

I am new at writing drivers and have a simple question if I may.

Is it necessary to reboot the PC each time I make a change to the driver I
am developing. At present I am using OSRLoader to Unregister the driver but
when I try to Register the updated driver I get the a message saying that
the driver has been marked for removal. I have found that the driver is
removed on the next reboot but I suspect that there must be a simpler less
time consuming method. Any help would be appreciated.

I am using Windows XP SP2 and version 6001.18000 of the DDK.

Is there a method of determining if there are any available updates for the
DDK and its documentation?

Regards FarmerJo

2

It depends on the type of driver you are developing. Generally
speaking, no reboot should be required. In either case, you don’t want
to unregister it each time; you want to unload it instead. Once you’ve
installed it with OSRLoader, you can probably start and stop it with:

NET START
NET STOP

This will not work for at least a PNP driver, but if it does, it’s a
lot easier. If it does work, then all you have to do after you stop it
is overwrite the binary.

Good luck,

mm

FarmerJo wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am new at writing drivers and have a simple question if I may.
>
> Is it necessary to reboot the PC each time I make a change to the driver I
> am developing. At present I am using OSRLoader to Unregister the driver but
> when I try to Register the updated driver I get the a message saying that
> the driver has been marked for removal. I have found that the driver is
> removed on the next reboot but I suspect that there must be a simpler less
> time consuming method. Any help would be appreciated.
>
> I am using Windows XP SP2 and version 6001.18000 of the DDK.
>
> Is there a method of determining if there are any available updates for the
> DDK and its documentation?
>
> Regards FarmerJo
>
>
>

3

Many thanks for the quick reply.

I did not realise that it was possible to update the driver without first
unregistering. I did what you said and it worked fine.

Regards FarmerJo

“Martin O’Brien” wrote in message
news:xxxxx@windbg…
> It depends on the type of driver you are developing. Generally speaking,
> no reboot should be required. In either case, you don’t want to
> unregister it each time; you want to unload it instead. Once you’ve
> installed it with OSRLoader, you can probably start and stop it with:
>
> NET START
> NET STOP
>
> This will not work for at least a PNP driver, but if it does, it’s a lot
> easier. If it does work, then all you have to do after you stop it is
> overwrite the binary.
>
> Good luck,
>
> mm
>
> FarmerJo wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I am new at writing drivers and have a simple question if I may.
>>
>> Is it necessary to reboot the PC each time I make a change to the driver
>> I am developing. At present I am using OSRLoader to Unregister the driver
>> but when I try to Register the updated driver I get the a message saying
>> that the driver has been marked for removal. I have found that the driver
>> is removed on the next reboot but I suspect that there must be a simpler
>> less time consuming method. Any help would be appreciated.
>>
>> I am using Windows XP SP2 and version 6001.18000 of the DDK.
>>
>> Is there a method of determining if there are any available updates for
>> the DDK and its documentation?
>>
>> Regards FarmerJo
>

4

Try using virtual machine like VMWare workstation, it saved me a lot of
time.

-Nishanth

On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 2:35 PM, FarmerJo wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I am new at writing drivers and have a simple question if I may.
>
> Is it necessary to reboot the PC each time I make a change to the driver I
> am developing. At present I am using OSRLoader to Unregister the driver
> but
> when I try to Register the updated driver I get the a message saying that
> the driver has been marked for removal. I have found that the driver is
> removed on the next reboot but I suspect that there must be a simpler less
> time consuming method. Any help would be appreciated.
>
> I am using Windows XP SP2 and version 6001.18000 of the DDK.
>
> Is there a method of determining if there are any available updates for
> the
> DDK and its documentation?
>
> Regards FarmerJo
>
>
>
> —
> You are currently subscribed to windbg as: xxxxx@gmail.com
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>

5

Once I get the driver stable I generally use devcon’s restart command
in combination with WinDbg’s kdfiles functionality. The one thing
to remember is that you need to close WinDbg when rebuilding,
otherwise your build will fail because the .PDB files can’t be written.

This greatly shortens my testing cycle; I can get a new driver built
and loaded in about 15 seconds.

-John

On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 2:35 PM, FarmerJo wrote:
Hi,

I am new at writing drivers and have a simple question if I may.

Is it necessary to reboot the PC each time I make a change to the
driver I
am developing. At present I am using OSRLoader to Unregister the
driver but
when I try to Register the updated driver I get the a message saying
that
the driver has been marked for removal. I have found that the driver is
removed on the next reboot but I suspect that there must be a simpler
less
time consuming method. Any help would be appreciated.

I am using Windows XP SP2 and version 6001.18000 of the DDK.

6

You can use Microsoft VirtualPC 2007 too or a VMware server (free) instead
of workstation version.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q="Microsoft+Virtual+PC+2007+download"&btnG=Search

On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 10:35 PM, FarmerJo wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I am new at writing drivers and have a simple question if I may.
>
> Is it necessary to reboot the PC each time I make a change to the driver I
> am developing. At present I am using OSRLoader to Unregister the driver
> but
> when I try to Register the updated driver I get the a message saying that
> the driver has been marked for removal. I have found that the driver is
> removed on the next reboot but I suspect that there must be a simpler less
> time consuming method. Any help would be appreciated.
>
> I am using Windows XP SP2 and version 6001.18000 of the DDK.
>
> Is there a method of determining if there are any available updates for
> the
> DDK and its documentation?
>
> Regards FarmerJo
>
>
>
> —
> You are currently subscribed to windbg as: xxxxx@gmail.com
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>

7

Many thanks to all for your help.
Regards FarmerJo

“FarmerJo” wrote in message news:xxxxx@windbg…
> Hi,
>
> I am new at writing drivers and have a simple question if I may.
>
> Is it necessary to reboot the PC each time I make a change to the driver I
> am developing. At present I am using OSRLoader to Unregister the driver
> but when I try to Register the updated driver I get the a message saying
> that the driver has been marked for removal. I have found that the driver
> is removed on the next reboot but I suspect that there must be a simpler
> less time consuming method. Any help would be appreciated.
>
> I am using Windows XP SP2 and version 6001.18000 of the DDK.
>
> Is there a method of determining if there are any available updates for
> the DDK and its documentation?
>
> Regards FarmerJo
>
>

8

John Kraft wrote:

The one thing to remember is that you need to close WinDbg when
rebuilding, otherwise your build will fail because the .PDB files
can’t be written.

This problem can be circumvented by using your own symbol server, and
then using symstore at the end of your build command. Additionally, this
then means that when debugging a driver crash, you don’t need to work
out what version it was you just let the symbol server work it out for you.

MH.

9

Silly question, but… is there something like SymSrv.exe ? Where can I get the server to use my own server?

I see on MSDN about using their server but nothing about a custom symbol server.

Thanks

Julian

-----Mensaje original-----
De: xxxxx@lists.osr.com [mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] En nombre de Martin Harvey
Enviado el: viernes, 14 de marzo de 2008 13:08
Para: Kernel Debugging Interest List
Asunto: Re: [windbg] Do I need to reboot everytime I update my driver?

John Kraft wrote:

The one thing to remember is that you need to close WinDbg when
rebuilding, otherwise your build will fail because the .PDB files
can’t be written.

This problem can be circumvented by using your own symbol server, and then using symstore at the end of your build command. Additionally, this then means that when debugging a driver crash, you don’t need to work out what version it was you just let the symbol server work it out for you.

MH.

You are currently subscribed to windbg as: xxxxx@gmv.com To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com

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10

Be aware, that depending on the type of driver, and the needs of a driver,
using a virtual machine can be a terrible idea. Some drivers need access
to the hardware and cannot use a VM. And then there are the drivers that
run into bugs, that the thread scheduling of a VM masks, at least one firm I
knew thought they were done with a driver, since it all worked perfectly
with a VM, then discovered it crashed on almost all raw hardware.

–
Don Burn (MVP, Windows DDK)
Windows 2k/XP/2k3 Filesystem and Driver Consulting
Website: http://www.windrvr.com
Blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/WinDrvr
Remove StopSpam to reply

“Nishanth Sena” wrote in message
news:xxxxx@windbg…
> Try using virtual machine like VMWare workstation, it saved me a lot of
> time.
>
> -Nishanth
>
> On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 2:35 PM, FarmerJo wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I am new at writing drivers and have a simple question if I may.
>>
>> Is it necessary to reboot the PC each time I make a change to the driver
>> I
>> am developing. At present I am using OSRLoader to Unregister the driver
>> but
>> when I try to Register the updated driver I get the a message saying that
>> the driver has been marked for removal. I have found that the driver is
>> removed on the next reboot but I suspect that there must be a simpler
>> less
>> time consuming method. Any help would be appreciated.
>>
>> I am using Windows XP SP2 and version 6001.18000 of the DDK.
>>
>> Is there a method of determining if there are any available updates for
>> the
>> DDK and its documentation?
>>
>> Regards FarmerJo
>>
>>
>>
>> —
>> You are currently subscribed to windbg as: xxxxx@gmail.com
>> To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>>
>