Design Specifications and Guidelines - Integrating with the System


Supporting Hardware Devices

Hardware devices often include special software to support installation and configuration options. Avoid creating your own setup and configuration user interface and instead use the system-supplied interfaces and conventions. For example, the system automatically supports basic property settings in Device Manager. You can extend this for specialized configuration options by defining an Advanced tab for the system-supplied property sheet.

Similarly, avoid adding objects to Control Panel, taskbar notification, or the Start menu to support your hardware device except as recommended otherwise in this chapter.

Additional information about designing drivers and hardware for Windows can be found in the PC Design Guide on the Microsoft Windows Driver and Hardware Development Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev.