Windows 98 Device Information Files Overview

Device information files provide information used by Windows 98 to install software that supports a given hardware device. When hardware manufacturers introduce new products, they must create INF files to explicitly define the resources and files required for each class of device.

The format of the INF files is based on Windows 3.x INF files:

• Section names are enclosed in brackets ([ ]) and must be unique within an INF file.
• Keys within a section do not have to be unique, but the order of keys within a section is significant.
• Private sections in an INF file are not evaluated by Windows 98.

The operating system detects the unique ID of each device installed. For the device identified, a specific section of the INF file provides information on that class of device; the following describes the information contained in a typical INF file section.