Windows Setup and Device Installation Logging

Updated: December 4, 2001

The Microsoft Windows Setup and Device Installer Services DLL, also known as SetupAPI, includes the Windows routines that control Setup and device installation. The Setup routines--which have the prefix Setup--handle INF file processing, error handling, disk prompting, file queuing, logging, and so forth. These routines are "General Setup Functions" described in the Device Installation section of the Windows Driver Kit (WDK) and are also documented in the Microsoft Platform SDK.

The information in this article applies for Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

The device installation functions have the prefix SetupDi, and are described in the Device Installation section of the WDK. These functions handle all aspects of device driver installation. The public declarations for both groups of functions are in the public header file Setupapi.h, which is included in the WDK.

SetupAPI logs its actions to the Setupapi.log file. This log file provides valuable information for troubleshooting and debugging Setup, device installation, and related issues. The information stored in the log file includes errors, warnings, and related information, including time information.

SetupAPI allows the logging level to be set to log errors only or to include warnings and other information. It also allows the logging level to choose the grade of information logged. The developer can modify the verbosity of logging as required for specific issues, or turn off logging altogether. The developer can also choose to log the information to a debugger as well as to the log file.

SetupAPI logs two sets of information to the log file:

• All warnings or errors regarding any install using SetupAPI.

• Device installation information, to aid in debugging device driver installation.

By default, the log file is stored in %SystemRoot%\setupapi.log. To debug Windows Setup, the developer can either:

• Perform an unattended Setup and run Regedt32.exe from the command prompt before clicking the Next button.

• Edit the registry during the period between Text-mode and GUI-mode Setup.

For detailed information about this capability, see "Troubleshooting Device and Driver Installations" in the Windows Driver Kit (WDK).

Call to action for Windows device installation:

• Become familiar with the Setup and device installation routines in SetupAPI as discussed in the Microsoft Platform SDK and WDK documentation. The SDK is available by MSDN Professional subscription at:
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/

• Use SetupAPI logging to troubleshoot Setup and device installation issues.

• Set the SetupAPI logging levels to log errors only, or to log warnings and other information. Increase the verbosity as required for specific issues.

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