Purpose
Function Discovery provides a uniform programmatic interface for enumerating system resources, such as hardware devices, whether they are local or connected through a network. It enables applications to discover and manage lists of devices or objects sorted by functionality or class. Users will benefit from this categorized view of devices on their system. Both applications and users can use Function Discovery to discover what functions their system can perform, regardless of the underlying device or software architecture.
Function Discovery supports an extensible discovery provider model. The providers included in the system provide an abstraction layer over existing standards such as Plug and Play (PnP), SSDP, WS-Discovery, and the registry. You can also create a custom provider to expose your resources through Function Discovery.
Developer Audience
Independent Hardware Vendors (IHV), multimedia device driver developers, and other hardware or software component providers can take advantage of the unified discovery and enumeration interfaces provided by Function Discovery. For example, IHVs can continue to provide standard PnP drivers and the PnP discovery provider provided by Function Discovery will expose their devices through the Function Discovery API.
Run-Time Requirements
Function Discovery is a component of the Windows Rally technologies built into Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista.
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Build date: 6/4/2009