Introduction to NDIS 5.0

The Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) 5.0 represents a number of extensions to the interface described in NDIS 3.0 and 4.0. The basic requirements, services, terminology, and architecture of the earlier versions also apply to NDIS 5.0. The new NDIS architecture will be included in Windows 98 and Windows NT 5.0 operating systems.

NDIS 5.0 consists of all functionality defined in NDIS 4.0, plus the following extensions:

• NDIS power management, required for network power management and network wake up.
  
  
• Plug and Play, which was previously supported only under Windows 98 but is now also applicable to Windows NT 5.0 network drivers.
  
  
• Windows hardware instrumentation support for structured, cross-platform management of NDIS miniports and their associated adapters.
  
  
• Simplified network INF format across Windows operating systems, based on the Windows 95 INF format.
  
  
• The goal for the new-style INF file format is to enable a single INF file to work on both Windows and Windows NT.
  
  
• Deserialized miniport for improved performance on Windows NT multi-processor systems.
  
  
• Task-offload mechanisms for tasks such as TCP/IP checksum, PPP compression/encryption, and Fast Packet Forwarding.
  
  
• Broadcast media extension, required for broadcast components.
  
  
• Connection-oriented NDIS, required for native access to connection-oriented media such as ATM and asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL), and WDM support for streaming over connection-oriented media.
  
  
• Support for QOS when supported by the media.
  
  
• Intermediate driver support, which is required for broadcast components, virtual LANs, LAN emulation over new media (ATM, satellite or broadcast television, and so on), packet scheduling for QOS, and NDIS support over WDM-supported buses such as IEEE 1394.

NDIS Extensions for ATM and QOS. Previously, NDIS primarily supported network interface card driver development and deployment of connectionless network media such as Ethernet, Token Ring, ArcNet, and Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI). NDIS 5.0 extends this interface to provide efficient support for connection-oriented media such as ATM and ISDN, with support for QOS and with isochronous data transfer for media that supports QOS. The new architecture also enables support for streaming of multimedia data such as audio and video over the NDIS media.

Information about the miniport driver model is included in the Windows NT 5.0 DDK.

Note: NDIS 5.0 features are accessible only by using the NDIS miniport driver model and are not supported for full MAC drivers.