Driver Verifier in Windows XP

Updated: December 4, 2001

Driver Verifier is a tool for monitoring Windows kernel-mode drivers and graphics drivers. Microsoft strongly encourages hardware manufacturers to test their drivers with Driver Verifier to ensure that drivers are not making illegal function calls or causing system corruption. Driver Verifier has been enhanced with new tests and features for Microsoft Windows XP.

Drivers submitted to WHQL for testing must pass Driver Verifier. New Driver Verifier features in Windows XP include:

• Driver Verifier Manager, an all-new graphical user interface (GUI) for verifier.exe

• New automatic check for Monitoring Stack Switching

• New Driver Verifier options for DMA Verification (also known as HAL Verification), Deadlock Detection, and SCSI Verification

• I/O Verification changes that combine "Level 1" and "Level 2" tests, optional Enhanced I/O Verification tests

• New debugger extensions !deadlock and !dma

• New bug checks: 0xE6 (DRIVER_VERIFIER_DMA_VIOLATION) and 0xF1 (SCSI_VERIFIER_DETECTED_VIOLATION)

• Additional sub-codes for the existing bug check codes 0xC4 and 0xC9

Driver Verifier features also include:

• New Verifier command line options The
  verifier.exe utility has a new parameter, VolatileDriverList, which can be used with the /adddriver keyword to specify a list of drivers to add to the volatile settings. VolatileDriverList can be used with the /removedriver keyword to specify a list of drivers to remove.

• New !verifier extensions
  New !verifier extensions display additional log information when monitoring low resources or IRQL raises and spin locks. Online help is also available.

  • Flags set with 0x4 causes the display to include a log of faults injected by Driver Verifier during low resources simulation

  • Flags set with 0x8 causes the display to include a log of the most recent IRQL changes made by the drivers being verified

  • If Flags equals exactly 0x4 or 0x8, the Quantity parameter specifies the number of records or log entries to include in the display

  • The ? parameter shows a brief help text

• New !gdikdx.verifier extensions
  A new !gdikdx.verifier extension, !gdikdx.verifier -s, lists statistics about the GDI callback functions called during low resources simulation for graphics drivers.

• Online Help for Driver Verifier Manager Online Help for Driver Verifier Manager can be displayed in either of the following ways:
  

  • Right-click an item in the Driver Verifier Manager window and choose What's This? from the pop-up menu.

  • Click the question mark (?) in the upper-right corner of the window and then click an item in the Driver Verifier Manager window.

For more information on using Driver Verifier and other Driver Developer tools, see the Windows Driver Kit.

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