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Types of Windows drivers.There are two basic types of Microsoft Windows drivers:
Like the operating system itself, kernel-mode drivers are implemented as discrete, modular components that have a well-defined set of required functionalities. All kernel-mode drivers supply a set of system-defined standard driver routines. The following figure divides kernel-mode drivers into several types. As shown in the figure, there are three basic types of kernel-mode drivers in a driver stack: highest-level, intermediate, and lowest-level. Each type differs only slightly in structure but greatly in functionality: 1. Highest-level drivers, always depend on support from underlying lower-level drivers, such as intermediate-level function drivers and lowest-level hardware bus drivers. 2. Intermediate drivers, such as a virtual disk, mirror, or device-type-specific class driver. Intermediate drivers depend on support from underlying lower-level drivers. 3. Lowest-level drivers control an I/O bus to which peripheral devices are connected. Lowest-level drivers do not depend on lower-level drivers. Date: 2015-01-29; view: 1604
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