How are your virtual drives done?

[SGreth]

First of all, thanks for such an awesome software package. I've been using Daemon tools for years now and it's one of the most handy tools I've ever used, so huge thanks.

The other day I thought of a nice usage for 'virtual drives' for on-the-fly backups, so I started fleshing out the idea. I'm actually a software developer by day, so I know you guys are trying to run a business, but I'd love to know if your virtual drive solution is implemented as a system driver, or if it runs in user-space.

I'm just trying to get a grasp of where to start, in the Win32 DDK or over in the SDK. No problem if you can't answer, but I figured I'd give it a shot!

Thanks guys, and keep up the great work!
~Rob

[Underheaven]

DDK! You have to pay for it, but you can get it for about $10.

Kernel-Mode Basics What Every Driver Writer Needs to Know

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/driver/foundation/SampleCode.mspx

MSDN Home > MSDN Library > Win32 and COM Development > Driver Development Kit > Storage Devices > Design Guide > Storage Miniport Drivers > SCSI Miniport Drivers

p.s. Here's a google search for more info: link.

[Underheaven]

DDK

Windows Kernel Internals, Windows Driver Model powerpoints

[SGreth]

Yeah, I spent the better part of today researching driver development. I've stuck to user-mode programming thus far in my career, looks like it's time to take a dive into driver development

[Underheaven]

DDK

I've taken a shallow dive and come up for water many times.


Something I found memorable: Set a whole machine aside for driver dev. It will be worth the lost hardware. You need to enable tracing , install symbols or properly configure an external symbol server, etc. You'll also want a cable setup for remote blue screen debugging. All the special environment conditions are not fun to install and re-install and its nice to have a *working* machine that you don't install junk software onto and use just for programming/testing and whatnot.

Also if you start with a Windows 2000 base, with NO service packs, you will find yourself a happier coder because all the textbook and online examples, code, patches, etc will have been designed for an OS that's that old.

... Just some of my ideas


p.s. If anyone comes across open source drivers, I'd love a link to their webpage(s). I haven't seen any non-linux drivers on sourceforge.

[SGreth]

Yeah, I scoured sourceforge yesterday for a while and didn't really come up with anything. Too bad driver development for windows isn't as 'open' as it is for Linux environments. Yeah, I'm probably going to hold off for a little while on the driver development. Scoping out my little project it looks to be not so 'little' anymore