Windows Vista snd Windows 7 Installation Support

Windows Vista and Windows 7 Installation Support

These Rawether releases include only small changes to the Rawether API released with Build 1805 in 2004. Most changes since 2004 are almost exclusively related to installation and migration to newer application and driver development tools.

Enhanced Legacy NDIS Protocol Driver Installation Method

In previous Rawether releases the PCANUser tool was used to support non-PnP driver installation. The PCANUser application was simply used to modify existing Rawether driver Service Control Manager (SCM) settings so a non-administrator could access the NDIS protocol driver. Using PCANUser was awkward because the setting would first have to be created by a separate application before PCANUser could be use to modify the settings.

This release provides new installation support tools that are specifically designed to be called as Custom Actions from a Windows Installer. These new tools deal with Vista and later User Account Control (UAC) facilities and also provide better driver uninstall capabilities.

Two new tools are provided:

	LegacyInstall - This utility is a replacement for PCANUser and PcaRmDrv and is used for non-PnP driver installation.
	ProtInstall - This utility is used for INF-based driver installation if you prefer that over non-PnP installation.

In addition, sample Windows Installer projects are provided to further illustrate the installation process.

Calling one of these two alternative installation toolsis one of the key steps in making a smooth installation of Rawether drivers on Windows Vista/7 as well as prior Windows versions.

Source code to these tools is provided with the Rawether SDK. You cam make further modifications to suit your own needs.

Drivers Signed for Windows Vista

The PCAUSA NDIS 5.0 protocol drivers are non-PnP drivers that do not require a WHQL test for signing. This means that you must self-sign the Rawether NDIS protocol drivers for them to be installed properly on Windows Vista - especially Windows Vista x64 Edition.

An article about self-signing NDIS protocol drivers is available on the NDIS.com site at this URL:

Self-Signing NDIS Protocol Drivers for Windows Vista

The Rawether drivers provided in the Bin\Drivers folder have been signed by PCAUSA and install properly.

Prevent Collisions in Side-by-Side Installations

Since Rawether was introduced in 1997 thousands of products have been developed using the product. Unfortunately, a large number of them install unmodified versions of supporting Rawether runtime components.

If you ignore the potential presence of other products that use Rawether and blindly install modified versions of the Rawether DLLs and drivers, then it is likely that either your product or some other product (or both) will fail.

Sample Installers for Windows 2000 through Windows Vista and Windows 7

Since installation on Windows Vista/7 is such an important issue this Rawether release includes sample Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008 setup projects that illustrate installation on Windows versions from Windows 2000 through Windows Vista/7 (Setupx86 for x86 hosts) and Windows XP through Windows Vista/7 (Setupx64 for x64 hosts).

These sample installer projects are actually the projects used by PCAUSA to make the downloadable Rawether Sample Executables that are posted on the Rawether.net website.

The key feature illustrated by these installer projects is calling the LegacyInstall or ProtInstall tool to create the Service Control Manager (SCM) entries needed to allow the Rawether drivers to be run. They also illustrate the proper location of runtime components.

Of course, these installer samples cannot be used for your own product without making modifications.

You may also continue to use other installation tools (InstallShield, Wise, etc.) if you would prefer.

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