Some general driver development questions

Question

I'm trying to update a driver from windows 7 to windows 10. The drier will only be installed on systems with intel chips.

1. Microsoft requires that the .inf file contain a NTamd64 but doesn't require a NTia64 section. Isn't NTia64 what I want, considering that it is for intel, but I shouldn't need an NTamd64 section? Clearly, I'm missing something fairly basic. Maybe, I am misunderstanding the difference between amd and ia.
2. Along the same lines, if include the [Standard.NTia64] but don't put anything in it, I get errors when I'm trying to install the driver. When I include stuff, I don't get those errors.
3. I notice that in setupapi.dev.log and setupapi.setup.log, I see stuff like this flq: Hardlinking 'C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\genpci.inf_amd64_da23f3bd87db1d6a\OTTPCI.sys' to 'C:\Windows\System32\drivers\OTTPCI.sys'.

I would interpret that as installing the driver for an amd chip rather than an intel chip.

Answer 1

Hi JamesBloomScheff-1507,

Use .ntia64 platform extensions on the names of sections that are required to install components on Itanium-based systems, and use .ntamd64 platform extensions on the names of sections that are required to install components on x64-based systems.

e.g.

[Manufacturer]
; The manufacturer-identifier for the Abc device.
%ManufacturerName%=AbcModelSection,ntia64,ntamd64

You can read more here:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/install/cross-platform-inf-files

This document outlines the requirements for a driver .inf file:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/ifs/creating-an-inf-file-for-a-file-system-driver

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