On http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/resources/blogs.mspx, the first section is devoted to driver development. Five of the seven blogs are from members of the WDF team (mine is the last and probably the least). The first one (driver writing != bus driving) is by the developer currently responsible for the installation technology and has very recent artivcles about how to diagnose installation problems. Other articles of his also point to other resources for understanding and troubleshooting installation issues. Doron (A Hole in my Head) has also made several entries on the subject. My own (Trouble Ahead- Trouble Behind) describes some of the things I have done (as an illustration) to troubleshoot customer and developer installation issues.
I believe our installation success rate is enviable- I don’t know how many decimal places of 9s we have, but we are definitely well past the decimal point. We do our best to investigate and diagnose every problem we know of. For KMDF and UMDF 1.7 we’ve made a number of improvements [some of which Ilias has described in his blog]. We’re not perfect, but we’re hardly slackers.
If there are install problems during the develpment phase, the overwhelming primary cause is INF errors.
All that said, here’s a synopsis of where to begin for WinXP:
%windir%\setupapi.log- this is produced by setupapi and tracks the overall instalation process.
%windir%\setupact.log- our coinstaller writes messages here describing what it has decided to do and why.
%windir%wdf01005nst.log (assuming 1.5 (WDK 6000) is the KMDF version you are using- it will match your coinstaller name for any KMDF version)- this is where our update packages will report its actions.
If the last file is missing it almost always means your INF isn’t correct.
If you can’t understand them, post them here- the community has plenty of experience with KMDF and can probably solve it for you.
If they do not, several members of the WDF team also look on and can cover it.
If that doesn’t work (and I have this guidance several times now in my blog and posts here), send them to xxxxx@microsoft.com, and someone will look into it.
If for some weird reason that doesn’t work, you can use the “email me” links on any one of those blogs and reach one of us directly. I in particular will promise that we can solve the problem if nobody else can or will [unless it is utterly insoluble, which so far hasn’t happened], even if I have to do it myself, and I currently have the work of three to do [sort of], due to staffing issues.
If you’re using WDF, as much as we can, we’ll cover your back. But it is good to try something like NTDEV first, because there’s a lot more of you than there is of us, and these folks are very good at what they do…
'Nuff said? Maybe not- if perchance I’ve come across as patronizing or dismissive of the expertise on this list, then that’s my error in my zeal to make sure that OP knows that if all else fails we’re here to back you up. My apologies in such event.