What You Should Already Know

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[oR]

All instruction assumes a base knowledge level. First, the reader should be familiar with Windows 2000 administration security and setup, for example. Since experimentation with kernel-mode code can (and will) cause system problems, the reader should be prepared and able to restore a chaotic OS.

Second, the reader should be competent in the C programming language and somewhat familiar with C++. Only a little C++ is used in this book, and then only for the purpose of simplifying tedious code.

Third, experience with Win32 user-mode programming is useful. Knowing how user-mode code drives I/O devices is useful in designing and testing device driver code. The test code for the examples in this book rely on the console subsystem model for Windows. To review this topic, the reader is referred to the Win32 Programmers Reference, particularly the chapters on I/O primitives (CreateFile, ReadFile, WriteFile, and DeviceIoControl). The bibliography lists other references for this topic.

Finally, while no specific prior knowledge of hardware or device driver software design is assumed, it would be useful if the reader had experience with some aspect of low-level device interfacing. For example, knowledge of writing device drivers for a Unix system will prove quite useful when reading this book.

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