Does devcon.exe work at all?

I am trying to use devcon.exe to ease the pain of repetitively re-
installing a device driver under development for test & debug
purposes.

The device driver I am developing is based on MSVA (i.e. has no real
hardware).

When I attemp invoking it like this:

devcon.exe update msvad.inf

I get the error message: "devcon.exe: Invalid use of update."

It seems that it also requires hwid as the second parameter?

So I typed:

devcon.exe hwids *

but all I get is: "No matching devices found."

What could be not matching in the wild card * ?????????

What does devcon.exe do? Does it work at all?

Or am I so sleepless and tired that I can't even get a clue how to use
a simple tool like this?

Thanks,
Don

P.S. If there is another way to re-install a driver (specified by .inf
and a path to the actual location of the .sys driver file) without the
annoying required mouse clicking on the update driver wizard, I would
appreciate describing it here.

Gianluca
Fri Jun 01 12:43:39 CDT 2007

devcon update works for plug and play devices only (in fact you don't have
an HWID).

I would try to use devcon install (although i'm not 100% sure it will work,
and i cannot find the this MSVA sample).

Have a nice day
GV


<0dbell@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1180698646.324561.232290@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
>I am trying to use devcon.exe to ease the pain of repetitively re-
> installing a device driver under development for test & debug
> purposes.
>
> The device driver I am developing is based on MSVA (i.e. has no real
> hardware).
>
> When I attemp invoking it like this:
>
> devcon.exe update msvad.inf
>
> I get the error message: "devcon.exe: Invalid use of update."
>
> It seems that it also requires hwid as the second parameter?
>
> So I typed:
>
> devcon.exe hwids *
>
> but all I get is: "No matching devices found."
>
> What could be not matching in the wild card * ?????????
>
> What does devcon.exe do? Does it work at all?
>
> Or am I so sleepless and tired that I can't even get a clue how to use
> a simple tool like this?
>
> Thanks,
> Don
>
> P.S. If there is another way to re-install a driver (specified by .inf
> and a path to the actual location of the .sys driver file) without the
> annoying required mouse clicking on the update driver wizard, I would
> appreciate describing it here.
>

0dbell
Fri Jun 01 13:52:28 CDT 2007

On Jun 1, 12:43 pm, "Gianluca Varenni"
<gianluca.vare...@community.nospam> wrote:
> devcon update works for plug and play devices only (in fact you don't have
> an HWID).
>
> I would try to use devcon install (although i'm not 100% sure it will work,
> and i cannot find the this MSVA sample).
>

Than you, Gianluca. I actually meant to write MSVAD sample, not MSVA.
This was a typo.

I actually only need a way to copy over the .sys driver file each time
I recompile to test and debug. However, just copying over the older
copy doesn't mean the driver is reloaded. Is there a way to accomplish
that? (devcon.exe is simply too cumbersome and seems to not be working
in my case).

Thanks,
Don

Gianluca
Fri Jun 01 17:48:21 CDT 2007

For a non-pnp driver the easiest way is issuing a "net stop <drivername>"
followed by a "net start <drivername>" on the command prompt.

Have a nice day
GV

<0dbell@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1180723948.931682.83750@p47g2000hsd.googlegroups.com...
> On Jun 1, 12:43 pm, "Gianluca Varenni"
> <gianluca.vare...@community.nospam> wrote:
>> devcon update works for plug and play devices only (in fact you don't
>> have
>> an HWID).
>>
>> I would try to use devcon install (although i'm not 100% sure it will
>> work,
>> and i cannot find the this MSVA sample).
>>
>
> Than you, Gianluca. I actually meant to write MSVAD sample, not MSVA.
> This was a typo.
>
> I actually only need a way to copy over the .sys driver file each time
> I recompile to test and debug. However, just copying over the older
> copy doesn't mean the driver is reloaded. Is there a way to accomplish
> that? (devcon.exe is simply too cumbersome and seems to not be working
> in my case).
>
> Thanks,
> Don
>
>

0dbell
Sun Jun 03 11:17:51 CDT 2007

On Jun 1, 5:48 pm, "Gianluca Varenni"
<gianluca.vare...@community.nospam> wrote:
> For a non-pnp driver the easiest way is issuing a "net stop <drivername>"
> followed by a "net start <drivername>" on the command prompt.
>
> <0db...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
>
> > I actually only need a way to copy over the .sys driver file each time
> > I recompile to test and debug. However, just copying over the older
> > copy doesn't mean the driver is reloaded. Is there a way to accomplish
> > that? (devcon.exe is simply too cumbersome and seems to not be working
> > in my case).
>

Gianluca, are you sure we are talking about the same thing? My driver
is not a network driver but rather an audio driver. I don't think NET
STOP would do anything here. Or am I wrong?

Thanks,
Don

Gianluca
Mon Jun 04 16:42:58 CDT 2007


<0dbell@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1180887471.597057.104260@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
> On Jun 1, 5:48 pm, "Gianluca Varenni"
> <gianluca.vare...@community.nospam> wrote:
>> For a non-pnp driver the easiest way is issuing a "net stop <drivername>"
>> followed by a "net start <drivername>" on the command prompt.
>>
>> <0db...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>
>>
>> > I actually only need a way to copy over the .sys driver file each time
>> > I recompile to test and debug. However, just copying over the older
>> > copy doesn't mean the driver is reloaded. Is there a way to accomplish
>> > that? (devcon.exe is simply too cumbersome and seems to not be working
>> > in my case).
>>
>
> Gianluca, are you sure we are talking about the same thing? My driver
> is not a network driver but rather an audio driver. I don't think NET
> STOP would do anything here. Or am I wrong?
>

I might be wrong in this case, I'm not an expert about audio drivers. If
noone else is able to help you, and you can post your INF file, I can prolly
give you some better idea.

Have a nice day
GV


> Thanks,
> Don
>

c_d_o_r_e
Mon Jun 04 16:47:37 CDT 2007

> devcon.exe hwids *
>
> but all I get is: "No matching devices found."

Something's wrong. You should get a whole bunch of stuff from `devcon hwids
*`.

Which DDK/WDK? Did you compile devcon from it's source, or use it from the
"tools" directory of the DDK install directory.

As for the HWIDs, don't let the term "hardware ID" fool you, virtual devices
still have hardware ID's. In the MSVAD inf some examples of HWIDs are "*MSVADSimple",
"*MSVADMulti", etc.


...Chris

0dbell
Sun Jul 08 16:20:11 CDT 2007

On Jun 4, 5:47 pm, Chris Dor=E9 <c_d_o_r_e@c_o_n_n_e_c_t_t_e_c_h.com>
wrote:
> >devcon.exe hwids *
>
> > but all I get is: "No matching devices found."
>
> Something's wrong. You should get a whole bunch of stuff from `devconhwi=
ds
> *`.
>
> Which DDK/WDK? Did you compiledevconfrom it's source, or use it from the
> "tools" directory of the DDK install directory.
>
> As for the HWIDs, don't let the term "hardwareID" fool you,virtualdevices
> still havehardwareID's. In the MSVAD inf some examples of HWIDs are "*MS=
VADSimple",
> "*MSVADMulti", etc.
>
> ...Chris

Chris, belated thanks for your tips. They were amazingly helpful.
First, instead of using the prebuilt devcon.exe that came with the
DDK, I rebuilt it on XP and that works just as expected - perfect.

Also, I was very confused by the term hardwareID... when looking at
the MSVAD Simple driver properties (via Device Manager), the "Hardware
Ids" field is empty... but the "Compatible Ids" field contains the
"*MSVADSimple". I still don't understand the meaning of this.

Thanks,
Don

0dbell
Mon Jul 09 10:18:34 CDT 2007

On Jul 8, 5:20 pm, 0db...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Jun 4, 5:47 pm, Chris Dor=E9 <c_d_o_r_e@c_o_n_n_e_c_t_t_e_c_h.com>
> wrote:
>
> > >devcon.exe hwids *
>
> > > but all I get is: "No matching devices found."
>
> > Something's wrong. You should get a whole bunch of stuff from `devconh=
wids
> > *`.
>
> > Which DDK/WDK? Did you compiledevconfrom it's source, or use it from t=
he
> > "tools" directory of the DDK install directory.
>
> > As for the HWIDs, don't let the term "hardwareID" fool you,virtualdevic=
es
> > still havehardwareID's. In the MSVAD inf some examples of HWIDs are "*=
MSVADSimple",
> > "*MSVADMulti", etc.
>
> > ...Chris
>
> Chris, belated thanks for your tips. They were amazingly helpful.
> First, instead of using the prebuilt devcon.exe that came with the
> DDK, I rebuilt it on XP and that works just as expected - perfect.
>
> Also, I was very confused by the term hardwareID... when looking at
> the MSVAD Simple driver properties (via Device Manager), the "Hardware
> Ids" field is empty... but the "Compatible Ids" field contains the
> "*MSVADSimple". I still don't understand the meaning of this.
>

OK - the latest update on this is that... devcon.exe SUCKS.

Using the manual driver install method (i.e. Control Panel's Add
Hardware) works perfectly (as expected) for the MSVAD Simple driver.

Using devcon.exe, on the other hand, wreak havoc in the registry:

First, under Enum\Root\MEDIA\0000, it stores *MSVADSimple in the
HardwareID field (instead of the CompatibleIDs, which seems to work
better, although I don't understand why). It also assigns the value
0x0 (instead of 0x4) to ConfigFlags.

Second, under Control\DeviceClasses\{KSCATEGORY_AUDIO GUID}\
##?#ROOT#MEDIA#0000#{KSCATEGORY_AUDIO GUID}
\#Wave\DeviceParameters

it fails to install the Mixer key completely (and all subkeys, of
course)!

In short, it does not behave the same as the manual install. What a
total waste of time. I am going to explore DPinst now. I hope that it
will be a little more predictable than devcon.exe

Don