Example class installer for Win98

I've been tasked with writing a class installer for a Win98 driver.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a conspiracy of silence on this
subject. I have Googled until my mouse cramped. I have searched the
Knowledge Base. I have searched the Technical Resources. I have read
books (which have said there are no known samples and/or that the task
is "hard" and will not be addressed). I simply cannot believe that there
is not and never has been documentation on how to write a Windows 98
class installer DLL. After all, such installers do, in fact, exist!

I would greatly appreciate any guidance that any of you may have on this
topic. Feel free to email me directly, and I solemnly promise not to
break the sacred layer of secrecy by telling anyone else of your help.

Many thanks in advance.
--
Roy M. Silvernail
rsilvernail@parker.com

Walter
Wed Oct 22 11:04:43 CDT 2003

"Roy M. Silvernail" wrote:
> I would greatly appreciate any guidance that any of you may have on this
> topic. Feel free to email me directly, and I solemnly promise not to
> break the sacred layer of secrecy by telling anyone else of your help.

We need to see that you know the secret handshake before we'll divulge
this information.

But, seriously, there's probably just no information out there. I
struggled to put together the 98/me version of FASTINST (source on my
book CD). I don't think Microsoft is interested in these old systems,
which is why they haven't assigned any resources to help people do
stuff.

Maybe you should step back and tell us why you want to write a class
installer anyway. You can probably do anything you want with a 32-bit
app calling cfgmgr32.dll functions, which *are* documented as CM_Xxx in
the DDK.

--
Walter Oney, Consulting and Training
Basic and Advanced Driver Programming Seminars
Check out our schedule at http://www.oneysoft.com

Roy
Wed Oct 22 12:58:17 CDT 2003

Walter Oney wrote:
> "Roy M. Silvernail" wrote:
>
>>I would greatly appreciate any guidance that any of you may have on this
>>topic. Feel free to email me directly, and I solemnly promise not to
>>break the sacred layer of secrecy by telling anyone else of your help.
>
>
> We need to see that you know the secret handshake before we'll divulge
> this information.

Oh, man... I thought this stupid pointy hat was enough. :(

> Maybe you should step back and tell us why you want to write a class
> installer anyway. You can probably do anything you want with a 32-bit
> app calling cfgmgr32.dll functions, which *are* documented as CM_Xxx in
> the DDK.

Well, the PHB wanted the whole installation to be handled by the Add New
Hardware wizard.

What I have is an ISA device in 2 flavors. One ISAPNP, one
jumper-configured. That is the only difference between the two, so they
are served by the same driver. On installation, I need to assign a
device number (0-7) and corresponding Friendly Name for each device.
Should one device be removed (using Device Manager), its replacement
must get the most recently removed device number. It's for field service
replacement of the ISAPNP version of the card, all of which have
globally unique IDs. If I can't reclaim the number, the end user's
applications all have to be recoded to address the new device number.
End users really hate that. (plus I only have 8 available)

Is there a simple way to tie the 32-bit app to the wizard install? I
can live with that. I just can't allow users to blindly assign device
numbers on their own.

And maybe this experience will entitle me to learn the handshake? :)
Thanks very much for your time and help.