Registering Miniport Driver Functions for WDM Lower Edge

  • Article

A miniport driver that has a WDM lower edge must call the NdisMRegisterMiniportDriver function in its DriverEntry routine to register certain entry-point functions with the NDIS library. These entry-point functions compose the miniport driver's upper edge and are described in Initializing a Miniport Driver. However, a miniport driver that has a WDM lower edge is not required to set up certain entry-point functions. For example, the following entry-point functions are not set up for the following reasons:

  • MiniportInterrupt, MiniportInterruptDPC, MiniportEnableInterruptEx, and MiniportDisableInterruptEx

    Because the miniport driver does not receive interrupts from a physical network interface card (NIC), it does not require these entry-point routines. The driver for the particular bus receives interrupts when packets arrive on the bus that are intended for the miniport driver. The bus driver then notifies the miniport driver.

  • MiniportSharedMemoryAllocateComplete

    Because the miniport driver does not allocate shared memory, a completion entry-point routine is not specified.

  • MiniportCheckForHangEx

    The miniport driver can rely on NDIS to determine if its miniport instance has stopped responding, based on sends and requests that time out, so this routine is not typically required.