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What Microsoft Needs to Include Before Launch

With Device Verifier now in its second generation and the integration of key performance checkpoints such as SCSI integration and driver testing, there are still several areas that Microsoft has yet to address with Driver Verifier. Here's a short list of the areas that will most likely be completed in the coming months before the Windows XP launch:

  • Tackling the video driver problem more cleanly. There are the Win16 API-based drivers that Windows XP's Driver Verifier can find when installing XP for the first time, and even the verification process that shows that the driver is accurate and plays well with the other Windows XP components. Yet, the Win32 API-based drivers are a different story, and are not easily recognized and installed by Device Verifier in Windows XP Professional.

  • .NET and the Win32API dilemma. Still unanswered is the migration within Driver Verifier as to its role in the entire migration from Win32 to .NET API for many device drivers and applications. It remains to be seen how Microsoft will resolve this issue.

  • Network device driver arbitration. There's been much work dedicated to the development of internally focused programs and executables in the Device Verifier that looks into the specifics on the system itself for device driver failures, but little has been done for arbitrating and solving network device driver problems. Microsoft continues to refine the plug-and-play aspects of Windows XP, so the entire upgrade process can take less than an hour on a workstation and low-end dual processor server. Yet the networking troubleshooting is somewhat absent in more complex configurations. The Device Verifier could actually be used for better troubleshooting of the network drivers, actually testing the validity of connections before installing the device driver itself.

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