Registering a Device-Specific Co-installer

To register a device-specific co-installer, add the following sections to the device's INF file:

;  :
;  :
[DestinationDirs]
XxxCopyFilesSection = 11                \\DIRID_SYSTEM
                                        \\ Xxx = driver or dev. prefix
;  :
;  :
[XxxInstall.OS-platform.CoInstallers]   \\ OS-platform is optional
CopyFiles = XxxCopyFilesSection
AddReg = Xxx.OS-platform.CoInstallers_AddReg
 
[XxxCopyFilesSection]
XxxCoInstall.dll
 
[Xxx.OS-platform.CoInstallers_AddReg]
HKR,,CoInstallers32,0x00010000,"XxxCoInstall.dll, \
 XxxCoInstallEntryPoint"

The entry in the DestinationDirs section specifies that files listed in the XxxCopyFilesSection will be copied to the system directory. The Xxx prefix should be a unique identifier for the driver, the device, or a group of devices (for example, cdrom_CopyFilesSection).

The next section, in the above example XxxInstall.OS-platform.CoInstallers, is the DDInstall.CoInstallers section. The name of this section can have an optional OS/architecture extension (for example, cdrom_install.NTx86.CoInstallers). It contains a CopyFiles directive that specifies a file-list-section called XxxCopyFilesSection, and an AddReg directive that specifies an add-registry section called Xxx.OS-platform.CoInstallers_AddReg.

The entry in the add-registry section creates a CoInstallers32 value entry in the device's driver key. The entry contains the co-installer DLL and, optionally, a specific entry point. If you omit the entry point, the default is CoDeviceInstall. The hexadecimal flags parameter (0x00010000) specifies that this is a REG_MULTI_SZ value entry.

To register more than one device-specific co-installer for a device, copy the files for each co-installer and include more than one string in the registry entry. For example, to register two co-installers, create INF sections like the following:

;   :
;   :
[DestinationDirs]
XxxCopyFilesSection = 11                \\DIRID_SYSTEM
                                        \\ Xxx = driver or dev. prefix
;   :
;   :
[XxxInstall.OS-platform.CoInstallers]   \\ OS-platform is optional
CopyFiles = XxxCopyFilesSection
AddReg = Xxx.OS-platform.CoInstallers_AddReg
 
[XxxCopyFilesSection]
XxxCoInstall.dll                         \\ copy 1st coinst. file
YyyCoInstall.dll                         \\ copy 2nd coinst. file
 
[Xxx.OS-platform.CoInstallers_AddReg]
HKR,,CoInstallers32,0x00010000,                 \
    "XxxCoInstall.dll, XxxCoInstallEntryPoint", \
    "YyyCoInstall.dll, YyyCoInstallEntryPoint"
                                         \\ add both to registry

Device-specific co-installers are registered during the process of installing a device, when the Coinstallers INF section is processed. SetupAPI then calls the co-installers at each subsequent step of the installation process. If more than one co-installer is registered for a device, SetupAPI calls them in the order in which they are listed in the registry.