Unidrv Components
Important
The modern print platform is Windows' preferred means of communicating with printers. We recommend that you use Microsoft's IPP inbox class driver, along with Print Support Apps (PSA), to customize the print experience in Windows 10 and 11 for printer device development.
For more information, see Modern print platform and the Print support app design guide.
Unidrv components consist of DLLs, plus text and binary data files, as illustrated in the following diagram:
Components in the diagram include:
Application
A user application, such as a word processor, that provides users with printing capabilities.
gdi32.dll
User-mode DLL that exports Win32 GDI functions.
Kernel-Mode Graphics Engine NT executive code that implements GDI functionality.
Minidriver Text Files
Text-based Unidrv minidrivers that describe printers by using GPD file entries.
Binary Data Files
Temporary files (with a .bud extension) that Unidrv creates after parsing information contained in minidriver text files.
unidrvui.dll
Unidrv user interface DLL, providing common UI code for all Unidrv-supported printers.
User Interface Plug-In
Optional, printer-specific, user interface plug-in.
compstui.dll
CPSUI user interface for printers.
unidrv.dll
Unidrv renderer, which renders images and sends the image data stream to the print spooler.
Rendering Plug-In
Optional, printer-specific, rendering plug-in.