Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Lyman Cooper Partin

Vladimir Sadovsky

Franc Camara

Keisuke Tsuchida

Byron Huntley Changuion

Oren Rosenbloom

Andrei Kozlov

David M Shiflet

A computer system uses simplified device drivers for operating hardware devices. A simplified device driver for a hardware device of a given device type, such as a flatbed scanner, works with a system-supplied common driver for that given device type. The common driver and the simplified driver together function like a regular device driver. The simplified device driver implements a small number of entry point functions corresponding to a pre-selected set of operation commands 'generic' to hardware devices of that given device type. When an application makes a request for an operation by the device, the request is passed through a device driver interface (DDI) to the common driver. The common driver then calls the entry point functions in the simplified device driver to carry out the requested operation.

Simplified device drivers for hardware devices of a computer system

A computer-implemented method and system useful in creating a device driver of a different architecture, based upon an existing driver of an original architecture. Information concerning an existing device driver is gathered. This information is stored for use by a transformation engine. The transformation engine maps information from the existing driver architecture to a new driver architecture. The transformation engine is used to obtain a description of the old driver in a format specific to the new driver architecture. A source code generation engine then converts the information obtained from the transformation engine into a new driver application layer. Given the base driver with the application layer already developed, a device provider or other driver creator can develop the device protocol layer for the driver.

Device driver conversion and creation

The present invention is directed to a system and method for monitoring and reporting status and conditions during a data collection session between an application program and a peripheral device. The present invention provides a proxy service that filters communication bi-directionally and provides for a substitution of procedures in the event of a device related error. Through the substituted procedure any one of a number of error handlers can be utilized to notify a user of the error condition. Further still, after the error condition has been resolved, the data collection session can resume from where it left off rather than being completely restarted.

System and method for monitoring and reporting events between peripheral device and host system applications

A computer system and method uses script-based device drivers for operating hardware devices. The script-based driver architecture comprises a scripting driver, a script engine, and a driver script for a given hardware device, such as a scanner. The driver script is generally a text file containing a sequence of programming instructions defining the operational behavior of the hardware device. The scripting driver exports a set of objects whose functions can be called by the driver script to communicate with and control the device. When a request to operate the hardware device is received by the scripting driver, the script engine interprets the programming instructions in the driver script corresponding to the request and invokes the functions of the scripting driver objects called by the programming instructions to carry out the requested device operation.

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Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Lyman Cooper Partin