Windows NT provides a generic tape class driver that handles OS-specific and device-independent tape tasks. To support a new tape device or family of tape devices a driver writer creates a device-specific tape miniclass driver that calls the system-supplied tape class driver.
If a tape miniclass driver calls only routines in the tape class driver, the miniclass driver can be portable across Microsoft operating systems that support Win32® applications.
A tape miniclass driver includes the minitape.h header file and links with the tape class driver DLL.
This section describes the support provided by the OS-specific tape class driver and provides design guidelines for writing a new tape miniclass driver. See the Kernel-Mode Driver Reference for details on the routines and data structures in the tape class and tape miniclass drivers. See Part I for a description of the SCSI device driver layers.