DEVPKEY_Device_ContainerId

The DEVPKEY_Device_ContainerId device property is used by the Plug and Play (PnP) manager to group one or more device nodes (devnodes) into a device container that represents an instance of a physical device.

Remarks

Starting with Windows 7, the PnP manager uses the device container and its identifier (ContainerID) to group one or more devnodes that originated from and belong to each instance of a particular physical device. The ContainerID for a device instance is referenced through the DEVPKEY_Device_ContainerId device property.

When you group all the devnodes that originated from an instance of a single device into containers, you accomplish the following results:

• The operating system can determine how functionality is related among devnodes that originate from a physical device.

• The user or applications are presented with a device-centric view of devices instead of the traditional function-centric view.

The DEVPKEY_Device_ContainerId can be used to determine the device container grouping of devnodes in a system. For a given devnode, you can determine all the devnodes that belong to the same container by completing the following steps:

• Call CM_Get_DevNode_Property or SetupDiGetDeviceProperty to query DEVPKEY_Device_ContainerId for the given devnode. Windows returns the ContainerID GUID value for the device container to which that devnode belongs.

• Enumerate all devnodes on the computer and query each devnode for its DEVPKEY_Device_ContainerId. Each ContainerId value that matches the ContainerId value of the original devnode is part of same container.

Note  All devnodes that belong to a container on a given bus type must share the same ContainerID value.

For more information about ContainerIDs, see Container IDs.

Requirements

Version: Windows 7 and later versions of Windows

Header: Devpkey.h (include Devpkey.h)

See also

Container IDs

SetupDiGetDeviceProperty