How can I set up Visual Studio 2017 to develop drivers?

4
votes

According to this forum, https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-hardware-winpc/windows-wdk-on-visual-studio-2017-community/fdbd2b44-e57a-4849-903d-04001205a764 Windows Driver Kit is not currently supported by visual studio 2017.

I tried installing the Windows Driver Kit, but the test driver projects, such as this one, fail to build

https://github.com/Microsoft/Windows-driver-samples/tree/master/serial/VirtualSerial

I get this error when building: Error MSB8020 The build tools for WindowsUserModeDriver10.0 (Platform Toolset = 'WindowsUserModeDriver10.0') cannot be found. To build using the WindowsUserModeDriver10.0 build tools, please install WindowsUserModeDriver10.0 build tools. Alternatively, you may upgrade to the current Visual Studio tools by selecting the Project menu or right-click the solution, and then selecting "Retarget solution".

I already tried retargeting the Solution to the two options I have: 10.0.17134.0 and 8.1, but the same error keeps coming up.

What do I need to do to build this sample driver? Do I need to install VS2015? VS2017 community edition? Why isn't this WDK supported by the Visual Studio 2017 professional version?

Thanks,

4
visual-studio-2017windows-10driver
See docs which states the Windows 10 DDK for Version 1803 supports VS 2017. - Chuck Walbourn
install 17134 SDK + WDK - magicandre1981
I installed SDK and WDK build 17758. But Under Platform Toolset, WindowsUserModeDriver10.0 shows as Not Installed The project is targeted to 10.0.17758.0 - Mich
@Chuck Walbourn That page only talk about VS2019 and Win10 1903 Now. VS2019 takes 30GB+ disk and bring only bugs and removed good features. - jw_

4 Answers

3
votes

Visual Studio 2017 definitely supports kernel-mode device driver development; there's no doubt about that because I've been using VS17 for it for many, many months.

Use the latest version of Windows Driver Kit (WDK) which can be downloaded and installed from MSDN: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/download-the-wdk

Furthermore, you can always use the Enterprise WDK and then you can simply build using that if you wanted to from command-line. (Also can be found on page linked-to above)

2
votes

Download the correct WDK installer for your edition of Visual Studio 2017:

Visit https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/other-wdk-downloads for more information.

1
votes

Not exactly a solution, but Windows 8.1 WDK works with Visual Studio 2017 Enterprise,

Download it from here, just need to retarget the project to 8.1

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=42273

In addition, I needed to get VS2015 C++ Build Tool to fix a missing Microsoft.cpp.props error http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/F/7/5F7ACAEB-8363-451F-9425-68A90F98B238/visualcppbuildtools_full.exe

0
votes

Developing drivers to windows is quite interesting one will be exposed to advanced Operating System Concepts.The set up for the environment will be IDE

  1. IDE - Visual Studio (https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/thank-you-downloading-visual-studio/?sku=Community&rel=16)
  2. Compilers (WDK)
  3. Debugger (WDK)

WDK contains both(https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2085767). Latest Visual Studio(VS2019) will come along with the latest WDK(10, 1903 as of now).

Sometimes plugins might not work properly i.e integration issues between Visual Studio and WDk.

  • By going to the location "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Vsix\VS2019" and run VSIX installer.
  • Now in a new project, driver related templates are available.