windows 8 driver development (Beginner)

NTDEV
1

Hi all,
I have developed a WDF based driver on windows 7 for a storage device. Of late , I want to start driver development on windows 8. As a beginner to windows 8 driver development , I have a few questions to ask :

  1. Can I install the above mentioned windows 7 driver on windows 8 by using the INF and .sys files? If no,what possible errors/hurdles could i come across?

  2. How different is developing a driver on windows 8 from windows 7? Are there any specific API calls introduced with win 8?

  3. Is using WDK 8.0 , for win 8 , enough a change for transition from windows 7 to win 8?

  4. Can i get some really useful links or documents/materials regarding win 8 driver development? Please do share it if any.

Any relevant information about windows 8 driver development would be appreciated.

Thanks

2
  1. it depends on the driver, but most of the drivers that worked on Win 7 suppose to work on Win 8.
  2. it is same, you just need to move to WDK for Windows 8 and use Visual Studo 2012 to develop the drivers, instead of just using WDK.
    there are all kind of new APIs, you should review the documention
  3. you should start here:
    http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/hardware
3

The driver binary you build for Windows 7 will almost certainly work on Windows 8. Except for rare circumstances, there’s no need to change WDKs, or build a specific driver for each version of Windows.

Peter
OSR

4

xxxxx@tataelxsi.co.in wrote:

I have developed a WDF based driver on windows 7 for a storage device. Of late , I want to start driver development on windows 8. As a beginner to windows 8 driver development , I have a few questions to ask :

  1. Can I install the above mentioned windows 7 driver on windows 8 by using the INF and .sys files? If no,what possible errors/hurdles could i come across?

Once you get underneath the Duplo-block colored tile user interface,
Windows 8 is not all that different from Windows 7. The only
significant difference is that Windows 8 requires all driver packages to
have a CAT file. That has previously been optional. Other than that,
your existing driver binaries should work fine.

–
Tim Roberts, xxxxx@probo.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.