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Native 802.11 Miniport Driver Registration

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Important  The Native 802.11 Wireless LAN interface is deprecated in Windows 10 and later. Please use the WLAN Device Driver Interface (WDI) instead. For more information about WDI, see WLAN Universal Windows driver model.

 

After the miniport driver returns from its MiniportInitializeEx function, the operating system will register the miniport driver as a Native 802.11 device by completing the following steps:

  • A query request of OID_GEN_MEDIA_SUPPORTED is made to determine the network media that is supported by the miniport driver. If the driver does not return a value of NdisMediumNative802_11, the operating system will not register the driver as a Native 802.11 device.

  • A set request of OID_DOT11_CURRENT_OPERATION_MODE is made to initialize the driver's operation mode.

  • A method request of OID_DOT11_RESET_REQUEST is made to reset the 802.11 station's media access control (MAC) and PHY layers, as well as initialize the cipher and authentication algorithms. At this stage, the 802.11 station is in a known state, and the operating system will configure the station further based on the parameters from a network profile selected by the user.

If any of these steps fail, the operating system will not register the miniport driver as a Native 802.11 device and will not issue requests to the driver for Native 802.11 operations.