For performance reasons, boot-start drivers must contain an embedded signature. The SignTool command-line tool, located in the \bin\SelfSign directory of the WDK installation directory, can be used to directly "embed sign" a driver SYS executable file. INF files for non-PnP drivers, including file system drivers, are not required to contain or sections. For these versions of the Windows operating system, the following list contains information that is relevant to file system drivers. Starting with 64-bit versions of Windows Vista, all kernel-mode components, including non-PnP (Plug and Play) drivers such as file system drivers (file system, legacy filter, and minifilter drivers), must be signed in order to load and execute.
For more information about creating such an INF file, see Creating INF Files for Multiple Platforms and Operating Systems and Creating International INF Files.
You can create a single INF file to install your driver on multiple versions of the Windows operating system. For general information about signing drivers, see Driver Signing. An INF file also contains driver configuration information that SetupAPI stores in the registry, such as the driver's start type and load order group.įor more information about INF files, see Creating an INF File and INF File Sections and Directives. The INF file is a text file that specifies the files that must be present for your driver to run and the source and destination directories for the driver files. The installation process is controlled by INF files.Ī file system driver's INF file provides instructions that SetupAPI uses to install the driver. The Windows Setup and Device Installer Services, known collectively as SetupAPI, provide the functions that control Windows setup and driver installation.
In this article About file system INF files