The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 18, 1997
Filed:
Dec. 23, 1992
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
A computer method and system for configuring device driver is provided. In a preferred embodiment, a device driver comprises a minidriver associated with each output device and a universal driver. Each minidriver implements a plurality of minidriver functions for controlling the outputting of data to the output device by invoking functions of the universal driver. During execution of a program, the program selects an output device and invokes the minidriver functions of the minidriver associated with the selected output device. An initialization function of each minidriver invokes an initialization function of the universal driver passing an indication of and attributes of the selected output device. Other minidriver functions invoke an analogous function of the universal driver passing an indication of the selected output device. The initialization function of the universal driver processes the passed attributes and stores the indication and the processed attributes. Each analogous function accesses the stored attributes and performs the behavior of the analogous function to effect the controlling of the output device.