Service Provider Interface

This section describes the Windows Media Device Manager Service Provider (SP) interface. It consists of a collection of COM interfaces and methods that allows Windows Media Device Manager to enumerate and control media devices. An application can control media devices with generic requests because the Service Provider interface handles the operational details of the device it controls.

For a list of supported devices, see Supported Portable Devices and Media.

There are two kinds of COM interfaces making up the Service Provider interface. The first type includes the interfaces that Windows Media Device Manager acquires to access and control media devices, and the second type is made up of interfaces that Windows Media Device Manager implements to enhance interaction with the Service Provider.

For optimal performance, Service Providers should use free-threaded COM objects because Windows Media Device Manager uses the free-threaded model (in which an object can be used on any thread at any time).

The Service Provider interface includes methods for handling the following tasks:

• Providing authentication.
  
  
• Enumerating media devices.
  
  
• Accessing media device interfaces.
  
  
• Obtaining device-specific information and status.
  
  
• Accessing storage media on media devices.
  
  
• Formatting a storage medium.