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Changes for Vendor-provided Storage Drivers Loaded Using F6

Updated: January 6, 2005

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INF Decorations for x64-based Systems
Directory Changes for Vendor-provided Storage Drivers

INF Decorations for x64-based Systems

Storage drivers for x64-based systems must use 64-bit INF decorations to be installed on Microsoft Windows Server 2003 SP1 and later versions of Windows. Storage drivers that do not use 64-bit INF decorations will initially load using F6 but will generate bug check 7B when the system restarts for the last time after GUI Mode setup, because the F6 mechanism does not use SetupAPI logic to load the storage drivers. To install such drivers, either get a newer version of the driver that uses 64-bit INF decorations, or decorate the INF manually as described in INF Requirements for 64-bit Systems. It is not possible to recover from bugcheck 7B; instead, you must update the storage driver as described and restart the setup process using F6.

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Directory Changes for Vendor-provided Storage Drivers

In previous versions of Microsoft Windows, a floppy disk provided by a vendor for storage controller drivers could contain drivers for only one processor architecture. In response to vendor requests to support driver installation for both x86 and x64 architectures, a single floppy disk can contain drivers for multiple architectures, as long as they are in different directories, using the names specified in this article.

To allow drivers for different processor architectures on the same floppy disk, the drivers and Txtsetup.oem for each architecture must reside in separate directories. The directory names are:

x86: \i386
x64: \amd64
Intel Itanium: \ia64

To maintain compatibility with previous Windows versions, if the processor architecture directory is not present, the loader will search the root directory of the disk for the appropriate files. For example, if the floppy disk has no \i386 directory, the 32-bit driver files can be located in the root directory as they always have been.

The use of standard directory names makes it apparent which processor architecture a particular driver binary is intended for, while allowing the vendor to include multiple versions of the same file name on a single floppy disk. We strongly encourage vendors who provide driver files for multiple processor architectures on a single floppy disk to use the appropriate names for the directories.

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