Hi, Corey Osgood wrote:
Okay, I hate to sound naive, but what Windows versions can/will this support? I'm assuming 2000 and XP,
Yes, indeed. The current driver is still on 2000/XP because I only have the DDK for that version of Windows right now. I haven't evaluate the WDK that's used for Vista yet.
what about Vista and 98? Also, where this is going to be a driver, will there be any problem with Vista complaining about it not being signed? Vista can be a real pain with drivers that aren't signed, the beta I was running had a workaround to allow you to boot, but I think that was removed from the retail release, which I have (free of charge, the only way I'd have it) but haven't installed yet.
I'm still trying to figure out how to support Vista in the future because it has a quite different architecture for "native" Vista driver. IIRC it's the "KMDF" model. "KMDF" is still a big question mark for me :-(. As for Windows 98. I'm not sure yet whether I will be able to "backport" the driver to support it or not. But, Vista support will surely become a priority in the future. Anyway, I have no Vista platform for testing for the moment. I'm focusing on 2000/XP right now. Beside, I heard that there will be service pack for Vista in the near future. Maybe, it's better to wait for it before trying to do anything with Vista because sometimes a new improved version of the Kernel API function is coming down the road. As for the driver signing. I'm also thinking about it. But, IIRC there is a way to generate the "signing" related stuff just enough to make it capable to be loaded in Vista. I'm not sure but I guess it's in one of my OSR magazine sent a few months ago. I'll try digging up on them ;-).
And last (but not least), flashing the BIOS while running Windows always seems to have been a tricky beast, I bricked a couple boards using windows-based flash tools back in the day. Will there be any ill side effects and/or potential issues with this?
This issue will need more testing to be solved because I have no problem at all doing it in two different motherboards. I successfully carry out the flashing even in motherboard that not officially supports windows-based flashing program. I'm using the very early beta version of my program to flash a modified BIOS and it works flawlessly (It's a VIA693A motherboard).
BTW, good work!
Thanks.
--Darmawan