Overview of INF Files

A setup information (INF) file is a text file in a driver package that contains all of the information that device installation components use to install a driver package on a device. Windows uses INF files to install the following components for a device:

• One or more drivers that support the device.

• Device-specific configuration or settings to bring the device online.

You can use an INX file to automatically create an INF file. An INX file is an INF file that contains string variables that represent certain information such as version information, architecture the INF is built for, and current WDF version. The Build utility and the Stampinf tool replace the string variables in INX files with text strings that represent a specific hardware architecture or framework version. For more information about INX files, see Using INX Files to Create INF Files.

See INF File Sections and INF File Directives for a complete description of the INF file format.