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Best practices for testing the download of device metadata packages

Important

Device metadata is deprecated and will be removed in a future release of Windows. For information about the replacement for this functionality, see Driver Package Container Metadata.

Because of how the device metadata retrieval client (DMRC) caches metadata packages, a delay can occur between the time when a device metadata package is available on the Windows Metadata and Internet Services (WMIS) server and the time when the DMRC downloads the metadata package to a client system. To test the download of a device metadata package, you can force a download in one of the following ways:

  • Delete the folders in the device metadata cache. This cache is located in the following directory:

    %PROGRAMDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\DeviceMetadataCache\

    Deleting these folders resets the value of LastCheckedDate and forces the DMRC to query the WMIS server for all devices.

  • Set the CheckBackMDRetrieved and CheckBackMDNotRetrieved registry keys to 0. When these values are zero, the DMRC immediately queries the WMIS server for a target device.

    Be aware that the WMIS server overwrites these values every time that the DMRC receives a response from WMIS. Therefore, these parameters can change if the DMRC receives a response for any other device before it queries the WMIS server for your target device.

    Note

    Make these changes only when you test metadata packages. Don't provide end-users with any tools that change the registry values that are used by DMRC.