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Overview of device interface classes

Any driver of a physical, logical, or virtual device to which user-mode code can direct I/O requests must supply a name for its user-mode clients. Using the name, a user-mode application (or other system component) identifies the device from which it is requesting I/O.

In Windows NT 4.0 and earlier versions of the NT-based operating system, drivers named their device objects and then set up symbolic links in the registry between these names and a user-visible Win32 logical name.

Starting with Windows 2000, drivers do not name device objects. Instead, they make use of device interfaces which are grouped by device interface classes. A device interface class is a way of exporting device and driver functionality to other system components, including other drivers, as well as user-mode applications. A driver can register and enable a device interface instance of the device interface class for each device object to which user-mode I/O requests might be sent. Each device interface class should represent a conceptual functionality that any device interface in that class should support or represent such as a particular I/O contract.

Each device interface class is associated with a GUID. The system defines GUIDs for common device interface classes in device-specific header files. Vendors can create additional device interface classes.

For example, three different types of mouse devices could register device interfaces that are members of the same device interface class, even if one connects through a USB port, a second through a serial port, and the third through an infrared port. Each driver registers its device as a member of the interface class GUID_DEVINTERFACE_MOUSE. This GUID is defined in the header file Ntddmou.h.

Drivers can register and enable device interfaces for a device they control for as many device interface classes that the device and driver support the functionality for. For example, a driver for a disk that can be mounted should register for both its disk interface class (GUID_DEVINTERFACE_DISK) and the mountable device class (MOUNTDEV_MOUNTED_DEVICE_GUID).

When a driver registers a device interface instance of a device interface class, the I/O manager associates the device and the device interface class GUID with a symbolic link name. The driver must enable the device interface in order for that symbolic link to be usable for a driver or application to send I/O to. The registration of the link name persists across system starts, but the device interface must be enabled by the driver on every enumeration of the device. An application that uses a particular device interface class can query for instances of the device interfaces in that class and receive a list of symbolic link names representing devices that support the interface. The application can then use the symbolic link name as a target for I/O requests.

Do not confuse device interfaces with the interfaces that drivers can export in response to an IRP_MN_QUERY_INTERFACE request. That IRP is used to pass routine entry points between kernel-mode drivers.