I have an application that doesn't start with some Intel HD graphics drivers, as the crash (in ig4icd32.dll) can come before our 3D engine is initialized the safer way to show a popup to request to the user to update his driver is do it before the OpenGL is created.
So my question is how can I retrieve the driver information (vendor and version number) before the window is created?
PS: It only impact few users on thousand that use a very old version of driver that have a bug, with more recent driver there is no issue. The popup is intend to warn the user to make sure that he will update drivers.
Update: I took a look to dxdiag and device manager, the driver version they give for my Nvidia card doesn't match the one which is return by Nvidia with OpenGL
I found the solution here, I had to use with "Win32_VideoController" instead of "Win32_OperatingSystem" in the query.
And here is the list of fields we can query.
Be careful, the version number is the one that we can find in the device manager and it doesn't necessary match one given by Nvidia or AMD to the user.
PS: It may have simpler way to retrieve same data by using other APIs.
Related
I would like to install a custom driver for a specific device in my machine programmatically:
The driver comes as an .inf file (with some other files as well).
The device is one of two identical network adapters in my computer.
As far as I know the only way to achieve this goal is to use the Microsoft Setup API. From reading the documentation I would assume that I need to perform two steps:
Use "DiInstallDriver" to install my .inf-based driver into the driver store (see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/newdev/nf-newdev-diinstalldrivera).
Use "DiInstallDevice" to apply my driver to the device (see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/newdev/nf-newdev-diinstalldevice).
Would this be the correct/easiest way to do this?
If so, here's a follow up question: DiInstallDevice requires two parameters which I don't know how to acquire:
DeviceInfoData: this should point to the network adapter I want to modify. How do I get this?
DriverInfoData: this should probably point to the driver I installed in step 1? How do I get this?
PS: Doing all this manually is uper easy: Open device manager, right-click the network adapter, select 'Update driver', choose .imf file from disk -> done!
But in this case I need to do it programmatically.
PPS: DevCon is not an option. It only allows to exchange the driver based on an Hardware ID. And that ID is the same for both of my network adapters (since they are exactly identical). So it would change the driver both devices.
You don’t need to call two methods, DiInstallDriver not only preinstalls a driver in the driver store, but also installs the driver on devices present in the system that the driver supports.
You can refer to the following documents: Functions that Simplify Driver Installation
It seems that UpdateDriverForPlugAndPlayDevices is the simplest way.
For DiInstallDevice, this function should only be use if both of the following are true:
The application incorporates more than one device instance of the same type, that is, all the device instances have the same hardware IDs and compatible IDs.
The application requires that device-instance-specific drivers be installed on the device instances.
UpdateDriverForPlugAndPlayDevices or DiInstallDriver is the
simplest way for an installation application to install a new driver
that is the best match for devices in the system. ... The basic operation
of UpdateDriverForPlugAndPlayDevices is similar to the operation of
DiInstallDriver. However UpdateDriverForPlugAndPlayDevices
supports additional installation options.
You can specify the HardwareId of network adapter for the UpdateDriverForPlugAndPlayDevices. If you want to install your .inf driver no matter what a better driver already exists on your computer, you also need to specify InstallFlags as INSTALLFLAG_FORCE.(Caution: Forcing the installation of the driver can result in replacing a more compatible or newer driver with a less compatible or older driver.)
I have been wanting to work with Vulkan, the new graphics API and have gotten it up and running with no problems on Windows 7. However I can't get Vulkan to work on linux. When I try running any of the LunarG samples, or even my own code, vkEnumeratePhysicalDevices always says that there are no physical devices. Here is my setup:
OS: Ubuntu 16.04 (LTS) [x64]
GPU: Nvidia Geforce GT 730 2GB GDDR5
Driver: NVIDIA Binary driver - version 364.19 from nvidia-364 (open source)
Vulkan SDK: LunarG v1.0.17.0 [ latest version]
I was wondering if maybe there's a file for my GPU that I need to set an environment variable for, but I really don't know. As I said before, this worked on Windows 7 perfectly, but I can't seem to get this to work this the above configuration. I am able to create an instance with the LunarG standard validation layer and the correct extensions, but vkEnumeratePhysicalDevices doesn't find any physical devices. It doesn't give an error, just says it can't find any physical devices. This has really got me stumped and I would really appreciate the help. Thanks!
Depending on your distribution you may have to install the nvidia-utils package. See this issue on my Vulkan repo for details.
If this isn't the case for you check the directories Karl mentioned and check if there is no other ICD (maybe one from Intel) that may cause troubles. If you're on an optimus system with dual GPU you may need to explicitly activate the NVIDIA GPU.
The 730 should work fine on Linux, at least judging from the Linux hardware reports I got on my database like this one.
You shouldn't have to set an environment variable if the driver installed properly.
One way to check for a proper installation is to look for the JSON file that identifies the driver. For example, an nvidia driver will place a file called nvidia_icd.json in /etc/vulkan/icd.d/. /usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/ is another standard, but less common location.
It may also be the case that your GPU does not support Vulkan. Be sure to check your GPU vendor's web pages to confirm support. You may want to download the driver straight from the vendor's site in order to get one that they say has Vulkan support.
And are you sure that using the "Additional Drivers" page is supposed to give you a Vulkan driver?
You can refer to the loader documentation in the docs section at https://vulkan.lunarg.com for more info.
I ran into a problem when using Silicon Labs' CP2102 USB-UART bridge controller. Silicon Labs offers an application for changing USB related configuration values (PID,VID,Device Description...) so I changed the VID value to the ones assigned to me by the USB-IF Administration. All fields appear to have been correctly updated (I ca see that in Device Manager) but Windows reports that there are no drivers available. Before changing the VID/PID and device description everything worked well.
Any idea how to tell Windows to use the same drivers as before? Is it possible or perhaps even normal for a driver to be tied to a specific VID/PID and by changing it I basically "broke" the controller unless I write my own drivers?
OS: Windows 7
USB-UART Controller: Silicon Labs CP2102
More information about the controller: http://www.silabs.com/products/interface/usbtouart/Pages/usb-to-uart-bridge.aspx
Thank you in advance for all your help.
Take a look at the Driver Customization Wizard (AN220SW). If you create a driver with a matching VID and PID as your customized device you can get it to load again (as well as re-customize back to default, or something else). The documentation for this is in Application Note 220.
I need to create an automated process in which a script detects the graphics card type on first boot, then installs the appropriate drivers, which will be included in the image, before performing the next steps. The target platform is Win XP Pro.
I came across some WMI code which can get hardware information but since it uses a PNPSignedDriver class I would presume that it requires drivers to be installed before it can detect the device.
I can't use devcon, as it isn't redistributable. Am I right in assuming that WMI cannot help me here, and if so what are my other options?
Thanks,
Bill.
WMI does seem to be the way to do this, as found here. I will confirm after testing.
EDIT - Not sure if this is possible, WMI can only get the name of the display adapter not the device ID of the card, and before the drivers are installed this is something generic like "Video Controller (VGA)". I will update this page if I find a way.
I'm using InstallShield to install my application, a driver and a service.
I need to install the plug-N-play driver only if it's hardware ID was found in the device manager. The driver installation is done using DPInst.exe.
My problem, is that a user can sometimes manually uninstall the driver (After it was installed or even uninstall the "Unknown driver" under "Other devices") and then I can't find the hardware ID in the device tree, although the device is plugged.
If I rescan the device tree during installation using CM_Reenumerate_DevNode_Ex (The code equivalent of "Scan for new hardware"), I can find the hardware ID but this brings up the "Found new hardware wizard".
Is there anyway to rescan the device tree but suppress the "Found new hardware wizard" or to avoid rescanning but still making sure my device hardware ID is present in the system?
I'm writing a new answer since we already have too many comments on my older one, and its content was based on a small misunderstanding of the situation.
The actual problem, as I understand it now, is the "Add new hardware" wizard that pops-up when rescanning for devices, before installing your driver. Unfortunately, this wizard pops-up whenever no suitable driver is found to handle a new device in the system, so in order to overcome it, the only option is to make sure that such a driver exists in the system. This leads to two possible solutions that I can see:
Go for a software first installation, and make sure that your driver is suitable for the device (the inf is well formed, and you have WHQL signing). As far I understand, this is not an option, because you do not want to install the driver on machines that don't have the device connected (I would love to hear why).
Make sure that some other driver in the system is suitable to handle it. In that case you need to choose one of the built-in drivers (one that wouldn't wreak havoc if it were to act as a function driver for your device), and give your device a matching compatible ID - one that would cause the built-in driver to be found suitable. This way you will not have to wait for the user after re-scanning for devices, but depending on your device, finding a fitting built-in driver might be impossible.
It sounds like you're going about it the wrong way. If you have an MSI based installation, why not use DIFxApp instead of DPInst?
As for the "Found new hardware" wizard, you'll need two things here:
Make sure that your inf file is correct (so that your driver is associated with the hardware id)
Get a WHQL signature from MS. This step is needed for XP, as untrusted drivers will not be automatically assigned to devices. With Vista and 7 you can digitally sign the driver yourself, but you'll get a warning during installation, asking the user whether he/she wishes to trust this publisher (you).