Windows Virtual Device Drivers In Delphi 1

[ajbufort]

Hello All,

Just wanted to ask a question and get a general read on the situation. How easy/hard is it to write a VxD, in general, I mean? I know there are simpler and more complex ones, but is this something a beginner at Windows programming should get into? I am getting the feeling that it is not. I am seeing whole books on the subject, and have heard stories from individuals about how challenging it can be. I am deciding whether or not to accept a project, and I am thinking I do not want to get myself into this yet. In the future, sure, but now - I don't know. I would be doing it in Delphi in any case.

-Tony

 

[whosrdaddy]

as with any device driver, it is certainlu NOT easy and you can't use delphi for that. M$ visual studio and C are the most appropriate tools for this....

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[ajbufort]

whosrdaddy,

Thanks for confirming that for me. I thought that was the case. You could use Delphi, provided you did the whole thing in Win32 API calls, right? I understand, though, that there are much more appropriate tools for this, like you said.

-Tony

 

[whosrdaddy]

no, delphi is not an option for device drivers because it can't compile/link this format. so if you want to create .vxd or .sys drivers, use a good c compiler...

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[ajbufort]

Okay, thanks for the clarification.

-Tony

 

[sggaunt]

That's a bit of a sweeping statement whosrdaddy!!
For just one example 'Alston Labs' write Device drivers in Delphi, there is some embedded Assembler, but Delphi can do most if not all you can do in C++.

Steve

 

[whosrdaddy]

sorry Steve but I have to disagree with this,
you can't write a level 0 (kernel) driver in delphi (.sys, .vxd) the linker simply doesn't know these formats. What the guys at alston labs do, is accessing hardware ports from the application, try this in windows NT/2000/XP and you're guaranteed to fail because this is not allowed by the OS simply because the application (level 3) has no rights to do this. one workaround for this is to use an intermediate kernel driver (yes, it has to be written in c) and communicate with this driver to have hardware access. For more info read here :

http://www.wideman-one.com/gw/tech/Delphi/iopm/

Cheers

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[sggaunt]

Point taken whosrdaddy

However some Driver development would seem to be possible with Delphi (and VB) when the low level stuff and programming interface is being provided by a third party system.

Have a look at

http://www.jungo.com/windriver_windows.html

We looked at this when researching a USB to custom hardware interface.
This system was overkill for our app (we settled on a hardware module plus virtual comport solution).

Steve.

 

[whosrdaddy]

I played around with jungo a bit, but I ended up with gwiopm.sys which is basically free and does the job like a charm...

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