Develop a Windows Driver: Getting Started

Take advantage of the resources provided by Microsoft to provide high-quality drivers for devices that work with Windows systems.

Decide What Drivers Your Product Requires

Determine what driver, or drivers, you need to support your product.

Read What is a Driver? and Choosing a Driver Model in the Windows Driver Kit (WDK) documentation.
Read “Do You Need a Driver” and “The Many Types of Drivers,” the first two sections in Getting Started with the Windows Driver Development Environment. This paper describes the driver development environment for Windows 7. However, these two sections are relevant for driver development for all versions of Windows.

Set up your development environment with the appropriate tools and documentation.

Windows Developer Preview Tools

You can use the Windows Developer Preview tools to develop drivers for Windows Developer Preview, Windows 7, and Windows Vista.

Windows 7 Tools

You can use the Windows 7 tools to develop drivers for Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP.

Install the Windows 7 version of the Windows Driver Kit (WDK), which includes header files, libraries, sample code, build tools, debugging tools, a testing framework, and documentation.
Download and install the Windows 7 version of the WDK documentation.
Install a text editor or a development environment such as Microsoft Visual Studio for developing your driver code.
Learn the benefits of the Windows Logo Program and install the Windows Logo Kit (WLK).

Learn about the Windows platform and Windows driver basics.

You should follow a rigorous development process to create your driver. If you are thorough, you can prevent problems and end up saving time.

Windows Developer Preview

See Developing, Testing, and Deploying Drivers to learn about how to develop drivers using the Windows Developer Preview tools.

Windows 7

Comply with industry standards for hardware and drivers.
Design your driver and write the code. Use existing drivers and sample code, where possible. See these tips on using sample code.
As soon as you have the basic parts of your driver written, build your driver, create a driver package for installation, and test-sign your driver.
Verify your code by using tools such as compiler checks, PREfast, Static Driver Verifier, and ChkINF.
Address security and reliability throughout development.
Ensure optimum driver performance.
Implement software event tracing to facilitate troubleshooting.