Other Resources

Other Resources

This book shouldn t be the only source of information you use to learn about driver programming. It emphasizes the features that I think are important, but you might need information I don t provide, or you might have a different way of learning than I do. I don t explain how the operating system works except insofar as it bears on what I think you need to know to effectively write drivers. If you re a deductive learner, or if you simply want more theoretical background, you might want to consult one of the additional resources listed next. If you re standing in a bookstore right now trying to decide which book to buy, my advice is to buy all of them: a wise craftsperson never skimps on his or her tools. Besides, you can never tell when a young dinner guest may need help reaching the table.

Books Specifically About Driver Development

Art Baker and Jerry Lozano, The Windows 2000 Device Driver Book: A Guide for Programmers, 2nd edition (Prentice Hall, 2001). Quite readable. Some errors survive from the first edition.

Edward N. Dekker and Joseph M. Newcomer, Developing Windows NT Device Drivers: A Programmer s Handbook (Addison-Wesley, 1999). A fine book with a fine sense of humor. Written just before WDM came out, so not much coverage of that.

Rajeev Nagar, Windows NT File System Internals: A Developer s Guide (O Reilly & Associates, 1997). Nothing at all to do with WDM, but the only book that attempts to explain the internals of the Windows NT file system.

Peter G. Viscarola and W. Anthony Mason, Windows NT Device Driver Development (Macmillan, 1998). Technical and authoritative. A WDM edition is supposedly coming someday.

Other Useful Books

Michael Howard and David LeBlanc, Writing Secure Code (Microsoft Press, 2001). Exceptionally detailed and readable discussion of security issues in applications. I ll be reiterating many of Writing Secure Code s lessons throughout this book.

Gary Nebbett, Windows NT/2000 Native API Reference (MacMillan, 2000). Detailed exposition of the underdocumented native API.

David A. Solomon and Mark E. Russinovich, Inside Windows 2000, Third Edition (Microsoft Press, 2000). All about the operating system. How come they got their pictures on the cover, inquiring minds would like to know?

Magazines

Old editions of Microsoft Systems Journal and Windows Developer Journal contain many articles about driver programming. Both of the magazines have gone to that Great Publishers Clearinghouse in the sky, however, and I can t speak for how well or often their successors cover driver issues.

Online Resources

The comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.nt.kernel-mode newsgroup provides a forum for technical discussion on kernel-mode programming issues. On the msnews.microsoft.com server, you can subscribe to microsoft.public.development.device.drivers. You can find mailing list servers for file system and driver programming issues by going to http://www.osr.com.

Roedy Green, How to Write Unmaintainable Code (2002), which I found at http://www.mindprod.com/unmain.html.

Seminars and Development Services

I conduct public and on-site seminars on WDM programming. Visit my Web site at http://www.oneysoft.com for more information and schedules. I also develop custom drivers for hardware manufacturers all over the world. I promise this is the only commercial in the book. (Not counting the back cover of the book, that is, which is full of statements aimed at getting you to buy the book and whose correspondence, if any, to reality will become susceptible to evaluation only if you succumb and actually read the book.)