Querying for the Display of a Custom UI

 

The operating system can query the Native 802.11 IHV Extensions DLL to determine whether the DLL has a custom UI to display. The operating system queries the DLL whenever the wireless LAN (WLAN) adapter transitions to one of the following phases within the WLAN network connection process.

Pre-association
The connection phase before the IHV Extensions DLL initiates a pre-association operation. For more information about the pre-association operation, see Pre-Association Operations.

Post-association
The connection phase after the IHV Extensions DLL completes a post-association operation. For more information about the post-association operation, see Post-Association Operations.

The operating system calls the Native 802.11 IHV Extensions DLL's Dot11ExtIhvQueryUIRequest IHV Handler function to query whether a custom UI can be displayed. The operating system passes the current phase of the connection process through the connectionPhase parameter. If a custom UI must be displayed, the DLL returns a DOT11EXT_IHV_UI_REQUEST structure through the p pIhvUIRequest parameter.

Through the DOT11EXT_IHV_UI_REQUEST structure, the Native 802.11 IHV Extensions DLL specifies the custom UI through the following data.

  • The user session identifier (ID), which is used to identify a specific user context.

  • A globally unique ID (GUID), which identifies the specific UI request.

  • The class ID (CLSID) of IWizardExtension COM interface that is implemented within the Native 802.11 IHV UI Extensions DLL. The CLSID is used to request a specific custom UI that is supported by the DLL.

    For more information about the IWizardExtension COM interface, see IWizardExtension COM Interface.

  • A buffer that contains data in a proprietary format that is defined by the independent hardware vendor (IHV) and processed by the specified IWizardExtension COM interface. For example, the buffer could contain the default values that are displayed within the custom UI.

The custom UI will be displayed as a set of wizard pages within the standard Network Connection UI. For more information about this process, see Displaying Custom UI Pages within the Network Connection Wizard.