Enumerating installed device interfaces

You must not enumerate the device interfaces in a system by directly accessing registry keys. As with any registry key, the location, name, or format of the key might change between different versions of Windows.

Use the following guidelines to safely enumerate device interfaces.

User-mode applications should follow these steps:

• Using configuration manager functions:

  Use CM_Get_Device_Interface_List to retrieve a list of device interfaces in the specified InterfaceClassGuid. You can optionally restrict the list to only device interfaces exposed by a particular device by setting the pDeviceID parameter to a specific device instance identifier.

  To include only device interfaces that are present (enabled) in a system, set the CM_GET_DEVICE_INTERFACE_LIST_PRESENT flag in the ulFlags parameter.

• Using SetupApi functions:

  1. Use SetupDiGetClassDevs or SetupDiGetClassDevsEx with the DIGCF_DEVICEINTERFACE flag set in the Flags parameter to retrieve the device interfaces for the specified device interface class. You can optionally restrict the list to only device interfaces exposed by a particular device by setting the Enumerator parameter to a specific device instance identifier.

     To include only device interfaces that are present (enabled) in a system, set the DIGCF_PRESENT flag in the Flags parameter.

  2. Use SetupDiEnumDeviceInterfaces to enumerate interfaces returned by the above calls.

Kernel-mode drivers should use IoGetDeviceInterfaces to retrieve a list of device interfaces in the specified InterfaceClassGuid. You can optionally restrict the list to only device interfaces exposed by a particular device by setting the PhysicalDeviceObject parameter.