Windows device: get "location" string for a given IMFActivate* of a UVC webcam

Question

When going to Windows' "Device manager" and clicking on (almost) any device in the list one piece of information in the "General" tab is called "Location". That is a string that is either:

• human-readable, like "on NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080"
• semi-useful, like "Location 0 (Internal High Definition Audio Bus)" or "PCI bus 9, device 0, function 0"
• a USB location, like "Port_#0004.Hub_#0015" or even a "0009.0000.0000.004.000.000.000.000.000"

That info is available through Windows' Unified device property model APIs.

What I'm looking for is to get that information from a given IMFActivate object.

Is there a way to do so? I can't find how to get "device" info from that activation object. The only piece of data I have is it's "symbolic link" (in my case, this string: \\?\usb#vid_04b4&pid_8888&mi_00#9&4fe28be&0&0000#{e5323777-f976-4f5b-9b55-b94699c46e44}\global) but that link's format is nothing like the string I see in "Location".

Thus my question: how to get device's "Location" string, given its IMFActivate object?

UPDATE

Here's the code I'm using to "convert" the symbolic link, provided by IMFActivate to a device id string, recognizable by setup-api functions and then extracting the "location string":

CString symLink2Location(const CString & _symLink)
{
    DEVINST di;
    CString devId = _symLink;
    devId = devId.Left( devId.Find(L"#{") );
    devId.Replace(L"\\\\?\\", L"");
    devId.Replace(L"#", L"\\");
    const auto rc = CM_Locate_DevNodeW(&di, devId.GetBuffer(), CM_LOCATE_DEVNODE_NORMAL);
    if(rc == CR_SUCCESS){
        DEVPROPTYPE dpt;
        ULONG sz = MAX_PATH;
        WCHAR prop[MAX_PATH];
        if(CM_Get_DevNode_PropertyW(di, &DEVPKEY_Device_LocationInfo, &dpt, (PBYTE)&prop, &sz, 0) == CR_SUCCESS){
            if(dpt == DEVPROP_TYPE_STRING){
                return prop;
            }
        }
    }
    return L"";
}

UPDATE 2

Here are the 3 audio input devices as seen in devmgmt.msc under "Sound, video and game controllers":

• MS LifeCam Cinema (TM), location: 0000.0014.0000.013.003.000.000.000.000 (symlink: \\?\SWD#MMDEVAPI#{0.0.1.00000000}.{751fe058-cef2-4d28-bbeb-e438981938d7}#{2eef81be-33fa-4800-9670-1cd474972c3f})
• MS LifeCam Studio (TM), location: 0000.0014.0000.013.004.004.000.000.000 (symlink: \\?\SWD#MMDEVAPI#{0.0.1.00000000}.{59267d2e-940b-45f5-8655-45372787bd85}#{2eef81be-33fa-4800-9670-1cd474972c3f})
• SUB2r USB 3.0 HD Webcam, location: 0009.0000.0000.004.000.000.000.000.000 (symlink: \\?\SWD#MMDEVAPI#{0.0.1.00000000}.{26a4f608-cbd8-4206-b958-d57ee6847153}#{2eef81be-33fa-4800-9670-1cd474972c3f})

All 3 are USB devices, all 3 are listed when calling MFEnumDeviceSources but their "symbolic link" doesn't resolve into a hardware device.

Answer 1

the string returned from IMFAttributes::Get[Allocated]String with MF_DEVSOURCE_ATTRIBUTE_SOURCE_TYPE_VIDCAP_SYMBOLIC_LINK or MF_DEVSOURCE_ATTRIBUTE_SOURCE_TYPE_AUDCAP_SYMBOLIC_LINK this is device interface string which we can use as input to CM_Get_Device_Interface_PropertyW. for get location information (if it present) need do 3 steps:

1. call CM_Get_Device_Interface_PropertyW with DEVPKEY_Device_InstanceId - as result we got device instance identifier of a device
2. use returned string in call CM_Locate_DevNodeW
3. and finally call CM_Get_DevNode_PropertyW with DEVPKEY_Device_LocationInfo

code example:

CONFIGRET PrintLocation(PCWSTR pszDeviceInterface)
{
    ULONG cb = 0, rcb = 64;

    static volatile UCHAR guz;

    PVOID stack = alloca(guz);
    DEVPROPTYPE PropertyType;

    CONFIGRET err;

    union {
        PVOID pv;
        PWSTR sz;
        PBYTE pb;
    };

    do 
    {
        if (cb < rcb)
        {
            rcb = cb = RtlPointerToOffset(pv = alloca(rcb - cb), stack);
        }

        if (!(err = CM_Get_Device_Interface_PropertyW(pszDeviceInterface, &DEVPKEY_Device_InstanceId, &PropertyType, pb, &rcb, 0)))
        {
            if (PropertyType == DEVPROP_TYPE_STRING)
            {
                DbgPrint("InstanceId=%S\n", sz);

                DEVINST dnDevInst;

                if (!(err = CM_Locate_DevNodeW(&dnDevInst, sz, CM_LOCATE_DEVNODE_NORMAL)))
                {
                    do 
                    {
                        if (cb < rcb)
                        {
                            rcb = cb = RtlPointerToOffset(pv = alloca(rcb - cb), stack);
                        }

                        if (!(err = CM_Get_DevNode_PropertyW(dnDevInst, &DEVPKEY_Device_LocationInfo, &PropertyType, pb, &rcb, 0)))
                        {
                            if (PropertyType == DEVPROP_TYPE_STRING)
                            {
                                DbgPrint("Location=%S\n", sz);
                            }
                            else
                            {
                                err = CR_WRONG_TYPE;
                            }
                        }

                    } while (err == CR_BUFFER_SMALL);
                }
            }
            else
            {
                err = CR_WRONG_TYPE;
            }

            break;
        }

    } while (err == CR_BUFFER_SMALL);

    return err;
}

of course if hardcode buffer size, function can make more simply

CONFIGRET PrintLocationSimp(PCWSTR pszDeviceInterface)
{
    WCHAR buf[1024];

    DEVPROPTYPE PropertyType;

    ULONG BufferSize = sizeof(buf);

    CONFIGRET err;

    if (!(err = CM_Get_Device_Interface_PropertyW(pszDeviceInterface, &DEVPKEY_Device_InstanceId, &PropertyType, (PBYTE)buf, &BufferSize, 0)))
    {
        if (PropertyType == DEVPROP_TYPE_STRING)
        {
            DbgPrint("InstanceId=%S\n", buf);

            DEVINST dnDevInst;

            if (!(err = CM_Locate_DevNodeW(&dnDevInst, buf, CM_LOCATE_DEVNODE_NORMAL)))
            {
                BufferSize = sizeof(buf);

                if (!(err = CM_Get_DevNode_PropertyW(dnDevInst, &DEVPKEY_Device_LocationInfo, &PropertyType, (PBYTE)buf, &BufferSize, 0)))
                {
                    if (PropertyType == DEVPROP_TYPE_STRING)
                    {
                        DbgPrint("Location=%S\n", buf);
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        err = CR_WRONG_TYPE;
                    }
                }
            }
        }
        else
        {
            err = CR_WRONG_TYPE;
        }
    }

    return err;
}

and for IMFActivate we can use next code:

void mftest()
{
    IMFAttributes *pAttributes;

    if (SUCCEEDED(MFCreateAttributes(&pAttributes, 1)))
    {
        UINT32 count, cchLength;
        IMFActivate **ppDevices, *pDevice;

        if (SUCCEEDED(pAttributes->SetGUID(
            MF_DEVSOURCE_ATTRIBUTE_SOURCE_TYPE, MF_DEVSOURCE_ATTRIBUTE_SOURCE_TYPE_VIDCAP_GUID)) && 
            SUCCEEDED(MFEnumDeviceSources(pAttributes, &ppDevices, &count)) &&
            count)
        {
            PVOID pv = ppDevices;

            do 
            {
                pDevice = *ppDevices++;

                PWSTR pszDeviceInterface;

                if (SUCCEEDED(pDevice->GetAllocatedString(
                    MF_DEVSOURCE_ATTRIBUTE_SOURCE_TYPE_VIDCAP_SYMBOLIC_LINK, &pszDeviceInterface, &cchLength)))
                {
                    DbgPrint("%S\n", pszDeviceInterface);

                    PrintLocation(pszDeviceInterface);

                    CoTaskMemFree(pszDeviceInterface);
                }

            } while (--count);

            CoTaskMemFree(pv);
        }

        pAttributes->Release();
    }
}