WinHEC

NTDEV
1

To try to start some new discussions, I know most people have not heard but
WinHEC will again be in Los Angeles, on November 4-7, 2008. Now if you are
like me, this is discouraging since the two WinHEC’s in LA were marketing
fluff. Personally, I think it is time that techies take back WinHEC see my
current blog post for my views.

So I wonder what others think, do you want a techie WinHEC? And if so what
should Microsoft be doing?

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

2

We’re all sorta used to WinHEC being empty, in favor of the Driver Dev Cons. When there’s REAL content to discuss, I’d like another DDC (with some modifications: Longer sessions, more of them, etc). I’d just as soon leave WinHEC to the planners and maketroids.

The real question for me is “What is there to discuss?” Unless there’s serious Win7 / new technology content to present, there’s no reason for a DDC (OR a technical WinHEC) at this time.

Peter
OSR

3

Actually, I’ve tried to argue in the past for some deep drill downs. For
instance, have Landy Wang give a multi-hour session on the internals of the
memory manager. Have Doron, do a dig through KMDF, etc. Also, techniques,
Microsoft did a lot to reduce lock contention in certain areas of the
kernel, how about some lessons learned for the rest of us.

The other thing about this time, is it a great time for getting input from
the driver community on what is desired and maybe what needs to be fixed.
Yes some of us have other channels for that, but a BOF ehere a ton of people
say WPP tracing has become worthless, or why can’t the kernel supply the
callbacks needed to satifsfy some of the common things people still hook,
might impact directions.

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

wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>
> We’re all sorta used to WinHEC being empty, in favor of the Driver Dev
> Cons. When there’s REAL content to discuss, I’d like another DDC (with
> some modifications: Longer sessions, more of them, etc). I’d just as soon
> leave WinHEC to the planners and maketroids.
>
> The real question for me is “What is there to discuss?” Unless there’s
> serious Win7 / new technology content to present, there’s no reason for a
> DDC (OR a technical WinHEC) at this time.
>
> Peter
> OSR
>
>

4

This is an excellent idea, Don. New is good…

I can’t say that I’ve ever been to a Driver Dev Con, and I’ve only been
to one WinHEC (two years ago - combined with DDC - product winner of an
OSR USBFX2 board, I might add), so for what’s it worth…

Basically, what I have heard from most people who’ve been to both is
essentially what Peter is saying, and count me as +1 on faith. My
single WinHEC experience was enjoyable, and I did learn things, but it
was mostly technology marketing - actually, pretty good marketing, as it
made DTM sound appealing at the time -, and I couldn’t in good faith
tell my employer that it is worth the loss of a week’s billable time,
client’s access to me, et. c.; nor was it worth, in my opinion, the
three weeks it takes to catch up once you get back. Conversely, I’ve
heard excellent things about what Driver Dev Con used to be like, so
whatever that is, that’s my choice.

In my mind, what makes an event like this trivially easy to justify as
“worth it”, is if you can get one question that’s been nagging for
months answered, even if the answer is just that you’re wasting your
time and need to move on. To me, that means more contact with the
actual developers with enough time for multiple people to ask a
reasonably detailed question, which I suppose means longer sessions,
preferably with most groups represented; perhaps there might be an “Q &
A” area, in addition to the presentations. As I recall, two years ago,
a tremendous amount of time was given to installation and testing, and I
think it was really popular with your managerial types, but personally
that did nothing for me, not just because it isn’t interesting, but
because I don’t really see what you can pick up in an hour that you can
take back and use.

I’m not sure if this really what other want; I think a lot of people
like the presentation format.

mm

xxxxx@osr.com wrote:

We’re all sorta used to WinHEC being empty, in favor of the Driver Dev Cons. When there’s REAL content to discuss, I’d like another DDC (with some modifications: Longer sessions, more of them, etc). I’d just as soon leave WinHEC to the planners and maketroids.

The real question for me is “What is there to discuss?” Unless there’s serious Win7 / new technology content to present, there’s no reason for a DDC (OR a technical WinHEC) at this time.

Peter
OSR

5

Well, the last DDC was 2 years ago and was pretty much a
disaster. Some bean counter had the great idea of holding it
simultaneously with WinHEC as a cost saving measure. And then, apart
from one NDA session discussed nothing that wouldn’t have normally
been considered WinHEC material in previous years.

Yes, the early DDC’s held on the Campus were great, but Microsoft
spoiled them by doubling the attendance using it as a cheap way of
training their own people.

I heard from an insider that running WinHEC and DDC 6 months apart
was deemed too expensive and time consuming (developers creating
presentation material instead of writing code), so they held them
together. From the disastrous feedback of that idea it was decided
to kill the DDC.

Sadly WinHEC no longer satisfies any segment of the community. The
last one in LA was definitely worse. Part of the reason was that
budget constraints inside Microsoft meant significant restrictions on
the number of meaningful Microsoft personnel in attendance. Not that
holding it in Seattle had become much better on that score. Three
years in a row in Seattle made Microsofties complacent, many turned
up for their sessions and then went back to Campus or home.

Frankly last year would have been a complete waste of time if it
hadn’t been for the keynote and sessions from Mark Russinovich. The
previous year the same could be said of the OSR session.

What has become very apparent over the last few years is that
Microsoft have significantly withdrawn from open dialog with the
driver community. From seeking to find out what ideas, suggestions
and even joint development ventures there are out there, WinHEC has
largely been turned in to a series of marketing lectures. Bill’s
opening keynotes have barely changed in years, he’s had at least 4
years telling us how great Vista will be/is. Of course, the long
gestation of Vista is one of the reasons for WinHEC becoming a
dirge. Perhaps with Win7 and other things on the horizon there may
be something new to discuss.

LA is a long way to go to spend 3-4 days and only pick up the odd
nugget of information that slips through. Of course, there is the
social networking side and catching up with old colleagues, but
that’s a hard justification to make to my bean counters when I put in
my travel request.

I just wish that the core technology groups could reclaim WinHEC for
what it was - an exchange of information and ideas.

Cheers,

Mark.

At 08:52 PM 1/21/2008, xxxxx@osr.com wrote:

We’re all sorta used to WinHEC being empty, in favor of the Driver
Dev Cons. When there’s REAL content to discuss, I’d like another
DDC (with some modifications: Longer sessions, more of them,
etc). I’d just as soon leave WinHEC to the planners and maketroids.

The real question for me is “What is there to discuss?” Unless
there’s serious Win7 / new technology content to present, there’s no
reason for a DDC (OR a technical WinHEC) at this time.

Peter
OSR

6

Great, now I have both internal and external people volunteering my time on my behalf ;). Seriously, that would be something that I would love to do given the opportunity and venue to do it.

d

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com [mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Don Burn
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 1:02 PM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: Re:[ntdev] WinHEC

Actually, I’ve tried to argue in the past for some deep drill downs. For
instance, have Landy Wang give a multi-hour session on the internals of the
memory manager. Have Doron, do a dig through KMDF, etc. Also, techniques,
Microsoft did a lot to reduce lock contention in certain areas of the
kernel, how about some lessons learned for the rest of us.

The other thing about this time, is it a great time for getting input from
the driver community on what is desired and maybe what needs to be fixed.
Yes some of us have other channels for that, but a BOF ehere a ton of people
say WPP tracing has become worthless, or why can’t the kernel supply the
callbacks needed to satifsfy some of the common things people still hook,
might impact directions.

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

wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>
> We’re all sorta used to WinHEC being empty, in favor of the Driver Dev
> Cons. When there’s REAL content to discuss, I’d like another DDC (with
> some modifications: Longer sessions, more of them, etc). I’d just as soon
> leave WinHEC to the planners and maketroids.
>
> The real question for me is “What is there to discuss?” Unless there’s
> serious Win7 / new technology content to present, there’s no reason for a
> DDC (OR a technical WinHEC) at this time.
>
> Peter
> OSR
>
>

—
NTDEV is sponsored by OSR

For our schedule of WDF, WDM, debugging and other seminars visit:
http://www.osr.com/seminars

To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer

7

Doron,

Another version of the problem of being visible on these lists. I
remember a few years ago when it was why don’t each of the experts write a
book. I did not nessecarily expect any of my examples to come to fruition,
but if such a presentation could be scheduled for WinHEC, I would probably
actually go to LA this year.

–
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

“Doron Holan” wrote in message
news:xxxxx@ntdev…
Great, now I have both internal and external people volunteering my time on
my behalf ;). Seriously, that would be something that I would love to do
given the opportunity and venue to do it.

d

8

I would definitely go. This sort of thing is exactly what I had in
mind, not factoring the demands on your time, of course, Doron.

mm

Don Burn wrote:

Doron,

Another version of the problem of being visible on these lists. I
remember a few years ago when it was why don’t each of the experts write a
book. I did not nessecarily expect any of my examples to come to fruition,
but if such a presentation could be scheduled for WinHEC, I would probably
actually go to LA this year.

9

Mark S. Edwards wrote:

Part of the reason was that budget constraints inside Microsoft
meant significant restrictions on the number of meaningful
Microsoft personnel in attendance.

Budget constraints? I thought MS paid $300k per employee, among the highest in industry?

10

Among the weird things I see on this list surrounding msft and supposed truths, this is one I wish were true ;).

d

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com [mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of xxxxx@gmail.com
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 3:00 PM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: RE:[ntdev] WinHEC

Mark S. Edwards wrote:

Part of the reason was that budget constraints inside Microsoft
meant significant restrictions on the number of meaningful
Microsoft personnel in attendance.

Budget constraints? I thought MS paid $300k per employee, among the highest in industry?

NTDEV is sponsored by OSR

For our schedule of WDF, WDM, debugging and other seminars visit:
http://www.osr.com/seminars

To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer

11

“What has become very apparent over the last few years is that
Microsoft have significantly withdrawn from open dialog with the
driver community.”

And I thought it was just me :slight_smile: I guess they made more money when they
didn’t talk to us and decided that that was a contributing factor…LOL

Actually the access to developers online is MUCH MUCH better than it used to
be. There didn’t used to be a Doron, Peter W., Jake O., Stephan W., and the
numerous other Microsoft devs that hang out either occassionally or daily
online now. Of course Eliyas has always been there…kind of like the sun
:slight_smile: So, in that way things are a whole lot better than they used to be. So,
I can’t complain too much. My biggest complaint now is: where is that KMDF
source? But I digress.

As for WinHEC/DDC, that has been declining in relevance since it started as
best I can tell. Everytime I have gone, it has been less useful than the
time before.

Bill M.

“Mark S. Edwards” wrote in message
news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>
> Well, the last DDC was 2 years ago and was pretty much a disaster. Some
> bean counter had the great idea of holding it simultaneously with WinHEC
> as a cost saving measure. And then, apart from one NDA session discussed
> nothing that wouldn’t have normally been considered WinHEC material in
> previous years.
>
> Yes, the early DDC’s held on the Campus were great, but Microsoft spoiled
> them by doubling the attendance using it as a cheap way of training their
> own people.
>
> I heard from an insider that running WinHEC and DDC 6 months apart was
> deemed too expensive and time consuming (developers creating presentation
> material instead of writing code), so they held them together. From the
> disastrous feedback of that idea it was decided to kill the DDC.
>
> Sadly WinHEC no longer satisfies any segment of the community. The last
> one in LA was definitely worse. Part of the reason was that budget
> constraints inside Microsoft meant significant restrictions on the number
> of meaningful Microsoft personnel in attendance. Not that holding it in
> Seattle had become much better on that score. Three years in a row in
> Seattle made Microsofties complacent, many turned up for their sessions
> and then went back to Campus or home.
>
> Frankly last year would have been a complete waste of time if it hadn’t
> been for the keynote and sessions from Mark Russinovich. The previous
> year the same could be said of the OSR session.
>
> What has become very apparent over the last few years is that Microsoft
> have significantly withdrawn from open dialog with the driver community.
> From seeking to find out what ideas, suggestions and even joint
> development ventures there are out there, WinHEC has largely been turned
> in to a series of marketing lectures. Bill’s opening keynotes have barely
> changed in years, he’s had at least 4 years telling us how great Vista
> will be/is. Of course, the long gestation of Vista is one of the reasons
> for WinHEC becoming a dirge. Perhaps with Win7 and other things on the
> horizon there may be something new to discuss.
>
> LA is a long way to go to spend 3-4 days and only pick up the odd nugget
> of information that slips through. Of course, there is the social
> networking side and catching up with old colleagues, but that’s a hard
> justification to make to my bean counters when I put in my travel request.
>
> I just wish that the core technology groups could reclaim WinHEC for what
> it was - an exchange of information and ideas.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Mark.
>
>
> At 08:52 PM 1/21/2008, xxxxx@osr.com wrote:
>
>>We’re all sorta used to WinHEC being empty, in favor of the Driver Dev
>>Cons. When there’s REAL content to discuss, I’d like another DDC (with
>>some modifications: Longer sessions, more of them, etc). I’d just as soon
>>leave WinHEC to the planners and maketroids.
>>
>>The real question for me is “What is there to discuss?” Unless there’s
>>serious Win7 / new technology content to present, there’s no reason for a
>>DDC (OR a technical WinHEC) at this time.
>>
>>Peter
>>OSR
>>
>
>

12

“Bill McKenzie” wrote in message
news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>
> As for WinHEC/DDC, that has been declining in relevance since it started
> as best I can tell. Everytime I have gone, it has been less useful than
> the time before.
>

Actually, it has gone through cycles. For instance the worst WinHEC IMHO
was 1997 in San Francisco, it was all marketing hype and it was pretty poor
for 1998 and 1999. In 2000 it got better, with things improving through
much of the following years, then starting to decline with the 2nd
DDC/WinHEC.

That is my argument, it is time to make it relavent again.

–
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

13

I still consider myself a newbie in the driver dev field, and I’ve been to
just one winhec, last year.

What was good at winhec last year

  • i got a chance to attend and meet some great msft devs (Peter, Eliyas,
    Nar, just to name some of them).
  • some sessions were really great (a couple hands-on-labs on debugging were
    really good for me)

what was bad or at least unsatisfactory for me

  • Ok, I was quite late at adopting WDF, but I was expecting at least some
    introductory sessions on KMDF, showing code. I usually like sessions where
    the speakers gets his hands dirty playing with the code. I know, playing
    with driver code at a conference can be painful but i think something can be
    done. In general, I would have expected more KMDF development sessions.
  • too much marketing thing. Sorry to say that, but the keynote was way too
    long and market oriented.

Since I never attended a DDC conference, what was the content of such
conference? More hands-on-lab/details on windows internals?

What I would really like (in a winhec or a DDC)

  • more hands-on-lab, for example using some of the samples from WDK.
  • sessions on windows internals are *always* good. If there are devs that
    have been in the windows driver dev arena for years now, there are always
    new people starting getting their hands dirty with kernel code. And I think
    sessions explaining how memory manager, scheduler and i/o manager work would
    be great.
  • sessions explaining the reason behind the architectural choices in the
    windows DDI or WDF framework.
  • sessions describing some of the samples in the WDK. The samples in the WDK
    are basically what everyone uses as a starting point for a new driver (well,
    I do), and hving someone from MSFT explaining why some choices were made in
    that sample would be great.

Just my two cents
GV

–
Gianluca Varenni, Windows DDK MVP

CACE Technologies
http://www.cacetech.com

----- Original Message -----
From: “Mark S. Edwards”
To: “Windows System Software Devs Interest List”
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 1:36 PM
Subject: RE:[ntdev] WinHEC

>
> Well, the last DDC was 2 years ago and was pretty much a disaster. Some
> bean counter had the great idea of holding it simultaneously with WinHEC
> as a cost saving measure. And then, apart from one NDA session discussed
> nothing that wouldn’t have normally been considered WinHEC material in
> previous years.
>
> Yes, the early DDC’s held on the Campus were great, but Microsoft spoiled
> them by doubling the attendance using it as a cheap way of training their
> own people.
>
> I heard from an insider that running WinHEC and DDC 6 months apart was
> deemed too expensive and time consuming (developers creating presentation
> material instead of writing code), so they held them together. From the
> disastrous feedback of that idea it was decided to kill the DDC.
>
> Sadly WinHEC no longer satisfies any segment of the community. The last
> one in LA was definitely worse. Part of the reason was that budget
> constraints inside Microsoft meant significant restrictions on the number
> of meaningful Microsoft personnel in attendance. Not that holding it in
> Seattle had become much better on that score. Three years in a row in
> Seattle made Microsofties complacent, many turned up for their sessions
> and then went back to Campus or home.
>
> Frankly last year would have been a complete waste of time if it hadn’t
> been for the keynote and sessions from Mark Russinovich. The previous
> year the same could be said of the OSR session.
>
> What has become very apparent over the last few years is that Microsoft
> have significantly withdrawn from open dialog with the driver community.
> From seeking to find out what ideas, suggestions and even joint
> development ventures there are out there, WinHEC has largely been turned
> in to a series of marketing lectures. Bill’s opening keynotes have barely
> changed in years, he’s had at least 4 years telling us how great Vista
> will be/is. Of course, the long gestation of Vista is one of the reasons
> for WinHEC becoming a dirge. Perhaps with Win7 and other things on the
> horizon there may be something new to discuss.
>
> LA is a long way to go to spend 3-4 days and only pick up the odd nugget
> of information that slips through. Of course, there is the social
> networking side and catching up with old colleagues, but that’s a hard
> justification to make to my bean counters when I put in my travel request.
>
> I just wish that the core technology groups could reclaim WinHEC for what
> it was - an exchange of information and ideas.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Mark.
>
>
> At 08:52 PM 1/21/2008, xxxxx@osr.com wrote:
>
>>We’re all sorta used to WinHEC being empty, in favor of the Driver Dev
>>Cons. When there’s REAL content to discuss, I’d like another DDC (with
>>some modifications: Longer sessions, more of them, etc). I’d just as soon
>>leave WinHEC to the planners and maketroids.
>>
>>The real question for me is “What is there to discuss?” Unless there’s
>>serious Win7 / new technology content to present, there’s no reason for a
>>DDC (OR a technical WinHEC) at this time.
>>
>>Peter
>>OSR
>>
>
>
> —
> NTDEV is sponsored by OSR
>
> For our schedule of WDF, WDM, debugging and other seminars visit:
> http://www.osr.com/seminars
>
> To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at
> http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer

14

Doron Holan wrote:

Among the weird things I see on this list surrounding msft and
supposed truths, this is one I wish were true :wink:

Hmm … well, hey, at least you got towels back in the fitness center :slight_smile:

15

Gianluca Varenni wrote:

I still consider myself a newbie in the driver dev field, and I’ve
been to just one winhec, last year.
…

  • too much marketing thing. Sorry to say that, but the keynote was way
    too long and market oriented.

Speaking honestly, this is really what WinHEC is for. It is a chance
for Microsoft to convey to the technical marketing types and technical
VP types at its major OEMs how they should be designing their products
for the next 2 or 3 years, and for the most part it always has been.
It’s also an opportunity for the major OEMs to brag about their design
wins and sell to each other. It isn’t really designed as a school for
driver writers, as much as we’d like to think so. They’ve always had
some technical sessions, to give the development folks something to do
while the VPs schmooze with other, but it’s not the primary purpose.

The DDC was designed for that educational purpose.

What I would really like (in a winhec or a DDC)

  • more hands-on-lab, for example using some of the samples from WDK.
  • sessions on windows internals are *always* good. If there are devs
    that have been in the windows driver dev arena for years now, there
    are always new people starting getting their hands dirty with kernel
    code. And I think sessions explaining how memory manager, scheduler
    and i/o manager work would be great.
  • sessions explaining the reason behind the architectural choices in
    the windows DDI or WDF framework.
  • sessions describing some of the samples in the WDK. The samples in
    the WDK are basically what everyone uses as a starting point for a new
    driver (well, I do), and hving someone from MSFT explaining why some
    choices were made in that sample would be great.

Except for the hands-on lab, is there really anything here that requires
Microsoft to spend tens of millions of dollars to rent an entire
conference center for a week, and invest tens of thousands of man-hours
preparing glitzy presentations to be delivered live and in person?
Couldn’t they satisfy everything you have asked for (except the hands-on
lab) with white papers and posted PowerPoint slide decks? Have you
looked through the vast library of white papers and PowerPoint
presentations on the WHDC web site? Most of what you ask is already out
there.

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

16

----- Original Message -----
From: “Tim Roberts”
To: “Windows System Software Devs Interest List”
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 5:46 PM
Subject: Re: [ntdev] WinHEC

> Gianluca Varenni wrote:
>> I still consider myself a newbie in the driver dev field, and I’ve been
>> to just one winhec, last year.
>> …
>> - too much marketing thing. Sorry to say that, but the keynote was way
>> too long and market oriented.
>
> Speaking honestly, this is really what WinHEC is for. It is a chance for
> Microsoft to convey to the technical marketing types and technical VP
> types at its major OEMs how they should be designing their products for
> the next 2 or 3 years, and for the most part it always has been. It’s
> also an opportunity for the major OEMs to brag about their design wins and
> sell to each other. It isn’t really designed as a school for driver
> writers, as much as we’d like to think so. They’ve always had some
> technical sessions, to give the development folks something to do while
> the VPs schmooze with other, but it’s not the primary purpose.
>
> The DDC was designed for that educational purpose.
>
>
>> What I would really like (in a winhec or a DDC)
>> - more hands-on-lab, for example using some of the samples from WDK.
>> - sessions on windows internals are always good. If there are devs that
>> have been in the windows driver dev arena for years now, there are always
>> new people starting getting their hands dirty with kernel code. And I
>> think sessions explaining how memory manager, scheduler and i/o manager
>> work would be great.
>> - sessions explaining the reason behind the architectural choices in the
>> windows DDI or WDF framework.
>> - sessions describing some of the samples in the WDK. The samples in the
>> WDK are basically what everyone uses as a starting point for a new driver
>> (well, I do), and hving someone from MSFT explaining why some choices
>> were made in that sample would be great.
>
> Except for the hands-on lab, is there really anything here that requires
> Microsoft to spend tens of millions of dollars to rent an entire
> conference center for a week, and invest tens of thousands of man-hours
> preparing glitzy presentations to be delivered live and in person?
> Couldn’t they satisfy everything you have asked for (except the hands-on
> lab) with white papers and posted PowerPoint slide decks? Have you looked
> through the vast library of white papers and PowerPoint presentations on
> the WHDC web site? Most of what you ask is already out there.

I know of the vast library of white papers and such, and most of the times
they are great. I just like sometimes to have people in front of me
explaining things (maybe I’m slow at learning). But as much as marketing
guys have their conference to “convey how they should be designing their
products”, devs should have a conference (or webcasts) explaining them how
to develop such products.

Don was proposing more techie stuff at winhec, i just proposed some ideas.
What would be prolly good and much less expensive is webcasts from the msft
devs. But this totally unrelated to winhec.

Have a nice day
GV

–
Gianluca Varenni, Windows DDK MVP

CACE Technologies
http://www.cacetech.com

>
> –
> Tim Roberts, xxxxx@probo.com
> Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.
>
>
> —
> NTDEV is sponsored by OSR
>
> For our schedule of WDF, WDM, debugging and other seminars visit:
> http://www.osr.com/seminars
>
> To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at
> http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer

17

and let’s not forget all the vista cola you can drink (or is just back to
talking rain now?) :wink:
-dave

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of
xxxxx@gmail.com
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 8:47 PM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: RE:[ntdev] WinHEC

Doron Holan wrote:

Among the weird things I see on this list surrounding msft and
supposed truths, this is one I wish were true :wink:

Hmm … well, hey, at least you got towels back in the fitness center :slight_smile:

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18

I find most of the stuff on WHDC to be elementary. Actually, that isn’t
totally true, a good bit of it is necessary foundation, but not nearly what
a DDC could provide. The biggest strength of WinHEC/DDC is access to
developers to be able to ask questions that actually pertain to driver
development. Microsoft has anything but a culture of transparency, so
sometimes face to face is the only way to get questions answered. In fact,
I find that to be true nearly 100% of the time for questions I need to ask
of MSFT. I will give you a for instance. Back when I was working on 1394
drivers a LOT, and that was back when most people never heard of 1394, I was
running into a lot of problems that I just couldn’t get closure on. I went
to a WinHEC and found out, from the 1394 devs, that all but 2 of the over 10
issues I was having were real and hard bugs in the 1394 stack. I also found
out work arounds for some of the issues I was having and found out that at
the time there was absolutely no interest in fixing those issues. That was
frustrating, but still a real help. None of that information has ever been
presented in a session nor is it in a white paper anywhere (well except some
of the stuff I wrote up on wd-3). Microsoft has only recently, like with
the Vista release, started rolling out fixes to the 1394 bus.

I wish white papers and power point on WHDC would be the solution, but I
suspect it never will be. Nothing replaces face time in Seattle.

AND, to someone else’s point of what could be covered in DDC nowadays.
Looking at the storage and file system stacks, there is still PLENTY of
uncovered ground in the Windows driver world.

Bill M.

“Tim Roberts” wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> Gianluca Varenni wrote:
>> I still consider myself a newbie in the driver dev field, and I’ve been
>> to just one winhec, last year.
>> …
>> - too much marketing thing. Sorry to say that, but the keynote was way
>> too long and market oriented.
>
> Speaking honestly, this is really what WinHEC is for. It is a chance for
> Microsoft to convey to the technical marketing types and technical VP
> types at its major OEMs how they should be designing their products for
> the next 2 or 3 years, and for the most part it always has been. It’s
> also an opportunity for the major OEMs to brag about their design wins and
> sell to each other. It isn’t really designed as a school for driver
> writers, as much as we’d like to think so. They’ve always had some
> technical sessions, to give the development folks something to do while
> the VPs schmooze with other, but it’s not the primary purpose.
>
> The DDC was designed for that educational purpose.
>
>
>> What I would really like (in a winhec or a DDC)
>> - more hands-on-lab, for example using some of the samples from WDK.
>> - sessions on windows internals are always good. If there are devs that
>> have been in the windows driver dev arena for years now, there are always
>> new people starting getting their hands dirty with kernel code. And I
>> think sessions explaining how memory manager, scheduler and i/o manager
>> work would be great.
>> - sessions explaining the reason behind the architectural choices in the
>> windows DDI or WDF framework.
>> - sessions describing some of the samples in the WDK. The samples in the
>> WDK are basically what everyone uses as a starting point for a new driver
>> (well, I do), and hving someone from MSFT explaining why some choices
>> were made in that sample would be great.
>
> Except for the hands-on lab, is there really anything here that requires
> Microsoft to spend tens of millions of dollars to rent an entire
> conference center for a week, and invest tens of thousands of man-hours
> preparing glitzy presentations to be delivered live and in person?
> Couldn’t they satisfy everything you have asked for (except the hands-on
> lab) with white papers and posted PowerPoint slide decks? Have you looked
> through the vast library of white papers and PowerPoint presentations on
> the WHDC web site? Most of what you ask is already out there.
>
> –
> Tim Roberts, xxxxx@probo.com
> Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.
>
>

19

“Tim Roberts” wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>
> Speaking honestly, this is really what WinHEC is for. It is a chance for
> Microsoft to convey to the technical marketing types and technical VP
> types at its major OEMs how they should be designing their products for
> the next 2 or 3 years, and for the most part it always has been. It’s
> also an opportunity for the major OEMs to brag about their design wins and
> sell to each other. It isn’t really designed as a school for driver
> writers, as much as we’d like to think so. They’ve always had some
> technical sessions, to give the development folks something to do while
> the VPs schmooze with other, but it’s not the primary purpose.
>
> The DDC was designed for that educational purpose.
>
From other folks WinHEC was very technical at first, then slowly became more
marketing. I would never have called DDC educational, remember the first
one Microsoft wanted only senior driver types at. The second DDC was
basically WinHEC’s driver stuff split out (I know people who went to both
conferences that year, and the WinHEC version of a talk presented more
internals thanks to questions, than the DDC’s NDA version).

There is nothing wrong with having a marketing component to WinHEC, but
consider the 2002 WinHEC which I think was one of the best. There were a
couple of keynotes, then straight to techie at least for driver types.
There was feedback session that started much of KMDF one night, that went
quite late. There were a ton of good presentations. The 2003 and 2004
WinHEC’s were also good with BOF’s were a lot of things were discussed, and
lots of good technical talks.

Last year it was all hype, the only feedback sessions were during the 12
hours of techie (which is a lot less than the 21 some years) and were
extremely structured (IMHO they were close to some of the survey’s Microsoft
does on the web). No ask the experts, no BOF’s and truly little truly
little in the way of providing people access to Microsoft Dev’s.

–
Don Burn (MVP, Windows DDK)
Windows 2k/XP/2k3 Filesystem and Driver Consulting
Website: http://www.windrvr.com
Blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/WinDrvr
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20

Well I was planning on laying out a driver model for devices which can
expose multiple surfaces of themselves (PCI SIG IOV) which allow them
to be used in multiple virtual machines simultaneously.

Does that make it worth your time?

  • Jake Oshins
    Windows Virtualization I/O Architect

wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>
> We’re all sorta used to WinHEC being empty, in favor of the Driver
> Dev Cons. When there’s REAL content to discuss, I’d like another
> DDC (with some modifications: Longer sessions, more of them, etc).
> I’d just as soon leave WinHEC to the planners and maketroids.
>
> The real question for me is “What is there to discuss?” Unless
> there’s serious Win7 / new technology content to present, there’s no
> reason for a DDC (OR a technical WinHEC) at this time.
>
> Peter
> OSR
>
>