OID_GEN_PHYSICAL_MEDIUM_EX

As a query, the OID_GEN_PHYSICAL_MEDIUM_EX OID specifies the types of physical media that a miniport adapter supports.

Remarks

NDIS handles this OID for NDIS 6.0 and later miniport drivers. The miniport driver supplies the physical medium value during initialization.

The InformationBuffer member of the NDIS_OID_REQUEST structure contains an NDIS_PHYSICAL_MEDIUM enumeration value.

Note  The difference between OID_GEN_PHYSICAL_MEDIUM_EX and OID_GEN_PHYSICAL_MEDIUM is that the OID_GEN_PHYSICAL_MEDIUM_EX version does not override the NdisPhysicalMedium802_3 type as NdisPhysicalMediumUnspecified whereas OID_GEN_PHYSICAL_MEDIUM still does. We recommend that all 6.x drivers use the EX version. OID_GEN_PHYSICAL_MEDIUM_EX is exposed through a WMI GUID.

Miniport drivers report a physical media type to differentiate their physical media from media that they declared to support in the OID_GEN_MEDIA_SUPPORTED OID query.

NDIS supports the OID_GEN_PHYSICAL_MEDIUM_EX OID for miniport adapters that support newer networks, even though those networks transfer packets that appear to the operating system and to NDIS as standard, well-known media types.

Newer networks transfer packets that might appear like standard media, but that might have new features or slight differences from the standard. This OID exists so upper-layer drivers and applications can determine the actual networks to which a NIC connects. After retrieving information about underlying networks, upper-layer drivers and applications can use this information to modify how such drivers and applications behave.

To clearly distinguish an 802.3 NIC from an emulated 802.3 NIC for which there is no physical medium type defined, NDIS 6.0 and later and later versions require 802.3 miniport drivers to report an NdisPhysicalMedium802_3 media type.

Requirements

See also

NDIS_OID_REQUEST

OID_GEN_MEDIA_SUPPORTED

OID_GEN_PHYSICAL_MEDIUM