MCI Device Types

Devices with similar properties are grouped together in categories known as device types. All of the devices belonging to a particular type respond to a common set of MCI commands. Each set of commands is contained in a separate MCI command table.

The following table lists device types defined by Microsoft. The table includes both string names and constants. Constants are defined in mmsystem.h.

String

Constant

animation

MCI_DEVTYPE_ANIMATION

cdaudio

MCI_DEVTYPE_CD_AUDIO

dat

MCI_DEVTYPE_DAT

digitalvideo

MCI_DEVTYPE_DIGITAL_VIDEO

overlay

MCI_DEVTYPE_OVERLAY

scanner

MCI_DEVTYPE_SCANNER

sequencer

MCI_DEVTYPE_SEQUENCER

vcr

MCI_DEVTYPE_VCR

videodisc

MCI_DEVTYPE_VIDEODISC

waveaudio

MCI_DEVTYPE_WAVEFORM_AUDIO

An MCI driver assigns a device to its appropriate type when it receives a DRV_OPEN message. (See Opening an MCI Driver.) This tells winmm.dll which command table to use. The driver uses the MCI_DEVTYPE_OTHER type for devices not belonging to any of the predefined types.

To find which MCI commands a driver must support for a particular device type, see the Win32 SDK. The Win32 SDK lists the command set associated with each device type. (Use the keyword index to search for a device type string, such as “videodisc”.)