How to build a Windows driver development kit 7 on 10

Question

I am trying to build a Windows driver for a piece of hardware I am using. The build notes seem dated as they specify using DDK for Win7. I have Windows kit version 10. Are these the same thing just later version? The instructions then state to open a DDK command window environment then use "build -ceZ" in the dir where the files are located. Does v10 have this console and if so where can I find it? Thanks

Answer 1

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/devtest/wdk-and-visual-studio-build-environment

"The Windows Driver Kit (WDK) 8.1 and WDK 8 introduced a major change to the environment that you use to build a driver. The WDK no longer uses Build.exe. The WDK build environment for drivers uses MSBuild.exe and is fully integrated with the Visual Studio development environment. This means that source files, makefile.inc, makefile.new and other related build files present in the previous version of the WDK are no longer used. The WDK now enables you to create, edit, build, test, and deploy a driver through Visual Studio. The purpose of this document is to provide information to help users familiar with previous WDKs in getting started with the WDK 8.1 and WDK 8."

If you want to build the driver as is then you will need to install the Windows 7.1 DDK and build it using its tools.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Driver_Kit

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=11800

You are allowed to install different versions of the DDK on the same machine.

You might find it tricky to install DDK 7.1 on Windows 10 though, try and use this to get around any problem install.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32091593/cannot-install-windows-sdk-7-1-on-windows-10#:~:text=If%20you%20continue%20with%20Setup,187668%20and%20then%20rerun%20Setup.

Then it's just a case of "choosing the 7.1 ddk environment (32bit or 64bit)" so that it's tools are accessible/used when "building" your driver.

Look in your startmenu at "StartMenu -> Windows Driver Kits -> WDK XXXX -> Build Environments" to find a command prompt to open.

If you can't/don't want to install the DDK 7.1 and a WDK8+ version of your driver project isn't available then it may be possible to convert the driver from using the older "makefile" into new msbuild way of building, but might be fiddly.

https://community.osr.com/discussion/289475/build-exe-to-msbuild-exe-migration-advice

"If you go into VS you should be able to create a WDK driver project. It will give you a solution with (I think) one C file filled with everything necessary to make a driver which does nothing. But, most importantly, it will generate an XML file that MSBuild will accept. The XML format is not documented. After you have this XML file you should be able to figure out how to add your files to it by hand, but you could move the existing driver files to the project using the GUI. That may be easiest."