Writing a Device Installation Application

It is preferred for driver packages to be submitted to the Windows Hardware Developer Center portal and published to Windows Update to be delivered to systems. However, if you need to write a device installation application to stage driver packages to the Driver Store or update the driver packages installed on a device, see Guidelines for Writing Device Installation Applications.

Your device installation application must handle two situations:

  1. The user plugs in your hardware before running your device installation application. This is commonly referred to as a hardware-first installation.

  2. The user runs your device installation application before plugging in your hardware. This is commonly referred to as a software-first installation.

If you would like to pair a device specific application with your driver package, it is recommended to create a Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app and associate it with your driver package. See Pairing a driver with a Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app for more information.