The Rawether for Windows Architecture

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The Win32 NDIS Framework

Rawether for Windows is a solution to the problem of accessing NIC drivers from a Win32 application. Its implementation follows the steps outlined in the previous Tour topic.

The Rawether for Windows consists of a DLL and a set of platform-specific NDIS protocol drivers:

bulletNDIS 5.0  Protocol Driver (32-bit) - A dynamically-loadable NDIS 5.0 Protocol Driver For Windows 2000, Windows XP and higher.
 
bulletNDIS 5.0  Protocol Driver (64-bit) - A dynamically-loadable NDIS 5.0 Protocol Driver For Windows 2000, Windows XP and higher.
 
bulletWinDis 32 API DLL - A DLL which exports the Win32 NDIS API and hides platform dependencies associated with accessing the registry and protocol drivers.

Together we call these low-level components the Win32 NDIS Framework.

[ Click Here For Block Diagram... ] 

In most cases the presence of the low-level Win32 NDIS Framework components is transparent to your application: they are dynamically loaded and unloaded on demand without interaction with the Network Control Panel Applet (NCPA). And applications can be installed and removed like an ordinary Windows applications.

 

The Win32 NDIS API

The heart of Rawether is a uniform Win32 application program interface (API) called the "Win32 NDIS" API or the Rawether API exported by the DLL. You build your application by linking to the DLLs import library and compiling with header files provided with the Rawether Software Development Kit (SDK).

The WinDis 32 API supports current Microsoft Windows platforms including:

bulletWindows 2000
bulletWindows XP
bulletWindows Server 2003
bulletWindows Vista

If you are considering using Rawether for Windows, then you should examine the Win32 NDIS API in more detail. You can download Rawether documentation in HtmlHelp format by clicking here

The Rawether documentation includes:

bulletIntroduction To Rawether for Windows
bulletRawether API Reference
bulletRawether SDK Documentation
bulletRawether DDK Documentation
bulletRawether Knowledge Base

The next topic on the Tour describes how to use the Win32 NDIS API in your own application.

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Last modified: June 02, 2008