Network Bridging Architecture (Windows CE 5.0)

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A network bridge is implemented as an NDIS intermediate driver in Windows CE. The following diagram shows the network bridging architecture employed in Windows CE.

At the lower edge, the MAC bridge exposes an NDIS protocol driver interface, which can bind to multiple network interface card (NIC) drivers. At the upper edge, the bridge exposes a single NDIS miniport interface, which causes all bridged network segments to appear as a single, virtual NIC to higher-level drivers. By presenting a single virtual NIC, the bridge causes the network binding structure to reflect the logical arrangement of the network and enables the protocol driver to bind to one single NIC and associate it with an IP subnet.

Note   Unlike Microsoft® Windows® 2000, Windows CE does not implement a graphical user interface that enables the user to manipulate MAC bridge settings due to the variety of devices that are supported. You must use the registry to set up network bridging in Windows CE instead. All settings are stored in the registry so that you can create a custom user interface for a target device.

See Also

Network Bridging Application Development

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