USB & Windows

Hello,  we are using a home brewed USB kernel driver to communicate with 
our equipment. This system in working fine on Windows Vista32, but our 
customers are moving to Seven32.
We build a few tens units per year and each unit has two different 
driver, so we are not so happy to pay 2*500$/years for certifications.
Is it possible to install our custom drivers on the new OS freely?


Thanks,
Giacomo

-Giacomo- <"[rimuovi]"@[rimuovi].[rimuovi]> writes:
>Hello,  we are using a home brewed USB kernel driver to communicate with 
>our equipment. This system in working fine on Windows Vista32, but our 
>customers are moving to Seven32.
>We build a few tens units per year and each unit has two different 
>driver, so we are not so happy to pay 2*500$/years for certifications.
>Is it possible to install our custom drivers on the new OS freely?

No way that isn't a hack. 

Ie. you can have your customer hit F8 each time they boot Windows7
and choose 'Disable Driver Signature Enforcement' off the boot menu. 

There's a couple other ways that are easier, but still involves having
your customer loadup software on their PC to get around the requirements.
You can google 'load unsigned drivers in Windows7' though. 

> -Giacomo-<"[rimuovi]"@[rimuovi].[rimuovi]>  writes:
>    
>> Hello,  we are using a home brewed USB kernel driver to communicate with
>> our equipment. This system in working fine on Windows Vista32, but our
>> customers are moving to Seven32.
>> We build a few tens units per year and each unit has two different
>> driver, so we are not so happy to pay 2*500$/years for certifications.
>> Is it possible to install our custom drivers on the new OS freely?
>>      
> No way that isn't a hack.
>
> Ie. you can have your customer hit F8 each time they boot Windows7
> and choose 'Disable Driver Signature Enforcement' off the boot menu.
>
> There's a couple other ways that are easier, but still involves having
> your customer loadup software on their PC to get around the requirements.
> You can google 'load unsigned drivers in Windows7' though.
>
>    

Ok. Thanks. I need a new design.
There are some chip vendors ( FDTI, Cypress) that supply a kernel driver 
and a user mode DLL. This can solve my problem.
I am still guessing how can I find my equipment enumerating the USB Devices.
Can I change the device description in the INF file still having a valid 
certification?

On Jan 15, 9:00=A0am, -Giacomo- <"[rimuovi]"@[rimuovi].[rimuovi]> wrote:
> Ok. Thanks. I need a new design.
> There are some chip vendors ( FDTI, Cypress) that supply a kernel driver
> and a user mode DLL. This can solve my problem.
> I am still guessing how can I find my equipment enumerating the USB Devic=
es.
> Can I change the device description in the INF file still having a valid
> certification?

Some FTDI chips have an internal EEPROM allowing you to customize some
USB descriptors and strings. If you customize the right ones, you
should
be able to use the Win32 setupapi to find your devices while still
using
the standard FTDI driver.

"-Giacomo-" <"[rimuovi]"@[rimuovi].[rimuovi]> skrev i meddelelsen 
news:4b506b86$0$818$4fafbaef@reader5.news.tin.it...
> Hello,  we are using a home brewed USB kernel driver to communicate with 
> our equipment. This system in working fine on Windows Vista32, but our 
> customers are moving to Seven32.
> We build a few tens units per year and each unit has two different driver, 
> so we are not so happy to pay 2*500$/years for certifications.
> Is it possible to install our custom drivers on the new OS freely?

You may want to consider changing your device, if that's possible.
If the speed is not critical, you can expose a HID device with a vendor 
defined page. There are built-in driver's for that from Windows 98 SE on.
http://www.lvr.com/hidpage.htm

Leo Havm&#4294967295;ller. 

this is the real cost of developing - hence "home brewed USB" is not
cheap.

Switch to a popular, supported USB stack (usually commerical), which
will include all of the windows side drivers.