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HID Transport Overview

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HID transports supported in Windows

Transport In-box minidriver Version Notes
USB Hidusb.sys Windows 7 and later. Support for USB HID 1.11+ is provided on Windows operating systems dating back to Windows 2000.
Bluetooth Hidbth.sys Windows 7 and later. Support for Bluetooth HID 1.1+ is provided on Windows operating systems dating back to Windows Vista.
Bluetooth LE HidBthLE.dll Windows 8 and later. Windows 8 introduces support for HID over Bluetooth LE.
I²C Hidi2c.sys Windows 8 and later. Windows 8 introduces support for HID over I2C.
GPIO Hidinterrupt.sys Windows 10 and later. Windows 10 introduces support for general-purpose I/O (GPIO) buttons.
SPI HidSpi.sys Windows 10 and later. Windows 11 introduces support for HID over Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI).

Microsoft recommends using the included drivers for transports listed in the preceding table.

If a device requires a transport other than USB, Bluetooth, Bluetooth LE, or I²C, a miniport driver as described in Transport Minidrivers is recommended.

HID transport limits

  • Report Descriptor Length

    A transport minidriver submits report descriptors to Hidclass in a HID_DESCRIPTOR structure. Regardless of the size defined by the transport protocol for transferring HID report descriptor with their devices, the actual report descriptor size is limited during the communication between Hidclass and HID minidrivers.

  • TLCs in a Report Descriptor

    The Hidclass/Hidparse driver pair is aware of the number of TLCs in a Report Descriptor. HID miniport drivers do not have that information. Each TLC has at least 2 bytes to start a collection and 1 byte to end the collection.

  • Input/Output/Feature Report Length

    The Hidclass/Hidparse driver pair defines lengths of HID Input, Output, and Feature Reports. The limit is 8 KB (minus 1 bit). Even if a HID minidriver can request a transfer of more than 8 KB for a report, only reports smaller than 8 KB are successfully transferred.

In-box minidriver Report Descriptor Length TLCs in One Report Descriptor Input/Output/Feature Report Length
Hidclass/Hidparse 65535 bytes 21845 8 KB - 1 bit
Hidusb 65535 bytes N/A 64 KB
Hidbth 65535 bytes N/A 64 KB
HidBthLE 65535 bytes N/A 64 KB
Hidi2c 65535 bytes N/A 64 KB
Hidspi 65535 bytes N/A 64 KB

See Also

USB Generic HID Test in the Windows Hardware Lab Kit (HLK) covers HidUsb and HidClass drivers. There is no HLK test for third-party HID mini drivers.