PRB: Missing Message Error When Starting Driver for Windows NT

• Microsoft Win32 Device Development Kit (DDK) version 3.51

SYMPTOMS

When starting a Windows NT Kernel Mode device driver under version 3.51, a system error occurs. A message is displayed indicating the following:

   System cannot find message for message #0x*** in message file for ***

CAUSE

This occurs when a driver passes uninitialized variables into the call to IoReportResourceUsage. Often, invalid data is located in the address regions of the resources requested. This causes the Hal to check the range and determine that the address is invalid for the type of bus concerned. IoReportResourceUsage then returns an error code indicating this.

However, at this time, the error code is not part of Ntstatus.h. If the driver just returns the error code directly back as part of a failure mechanism, it will cause the error to be displayed from the command line when net start <drivername> is applied.

RESOLUTION

The error can be avoided by making sure all variables passed into IoReportResourceUsage, including the variables that are part of the resource lists, are initialized correctly.

STATUS

Microsoft is investigating this situation and will post new information in the knowledge base as it becomes available.