Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Thomas J Shea

Shishir Shah

Andrew P Crick

Mike Glass

A method and system for configuring and executing device drivers in a computer system is provided. In a preferred embodiment, the device drivers comprise a plurality of component drivers. Each component driver performs a function (e.g., disk caching) that may be used in accessing a device. The component drivers of a device driver are ordered from a top layer to a bottom layer. When accessing a device, the top layer component driver of the device driver is first invoked. Each component driver performs its function and invokes the next lower layer component driver. The bottom layer component driver interacts directly with the device. An operating system, preferably, dynamically configures the device drivers at computer system startup. The operating system has a plurality of component drivers that are available to be configured into a device driver. To configure a device driver, the operating system invokes each component driver to determine whether the component driver should be included as a layer in the device drive. If a component driver should be included, the component driver stores a reference to the component driver in a call-down table for the device driver. The call-down table stores the ordering of the component driver layers. When accessing the device, the operating system first invokes the component driver referenced by the top reference in the call-down table. Each component driver in turn invokes the component driver referenced by the next lower reference in the call-down table.

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Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Thomas J Shea