Rating: 
Summary: Great book for my needs given my experience.
Review: Oney's book provided the right overview and explanations I needed to get up to speed. I didn't expect a man to pop out of his book and do the work for me. Most any serious development is never done by the purchase of a book alone. I do recall certain areas where I mumbled a little, where I'd wished he'd elaborated and/or expanded a little more, but this is meant only to hint at a slight criticism. Oney's book was used in helping to produce successful results for real-world commercial software development. Thanks Mr. Oney!
Rating: 
Summary: Hard going
Review: This book is written in an extremely hard to read style, with long and convoluted sentences. The writing style is almost unbearably boring. It you thought Hardy's "Return of the Native" was too fast paced, this is the book for you! It also tends to explain the micro details without clearly explaining how it all fits together. In this respect, it almost assumes you have read and understood the Device Driver Kits, although the reader will be generally looking for help getting started with the DDKs. There also seem to be a lot of omissions, in that it does not do a very good job of getting you started. Want to write a winmodem driver? This book gives you no idea where to start. Having said all that, you probably need this book if you are writing a WDM driver. It does have a lot of useful information and tips. However it assumes you are a guru already.
Rating:
Summary: Success Story
Review: This book was a valuable resource for my successful driver development project. For newbie's, the book is a great companion to the DDK. The text provides simple and concise sample code. The examples on the CD-ROM are a great way to start exploring driver programming concepts using a kernel debugger. The DDK samples are far too complicated for understanding the fundamentals, so use the book to get started and then the DDK samples will be much easier to comprehend. I recommend that you read through the entire book at a high enough level that you don't get caught up in the details. Next, find the chapter and sample driver that is most appropriate for your task and get started. Throughout the rest of development, you'll reference various parts of the book to understand the details and avoid the hidden pitfalls in kernel mode programming. For experts, the book provides comprehensive treatment of the topic. It's full of tips and suggestions based on real-world experience. Many of the driver components on the CD-ROM can be integrated into real drivers in order to reduce development time and complexity. If you are creating a production driver that you intend to ship to real customers, the book will also provide you many options for creating a top-notch user experience during the install process. WHQL and driver security issues are addressed as well. The author updates the CD-ROM sources in service packs located on the web site. These updates are based on his continuing work and feedback from readers.
Rating:
Summary: Success Story
Review: This book was a valuable resource for my successful driver development project. For newbie's, the book is a great companion to the DDK. The text provides simple and concise sample code. The examples on the CD-ROM are a great way to start exploring driver programming concepts using a kernel debugger. The DDK samples are far too complicated for understanding the fundamentals, so use the book to get started and then the DDK samples will be much easier to comprehend. I recommend that you read through the entire book at a high enough level that you don't get caught up in the details. Next, find the chapter and sample driver that is most appropriate for your task and get started. Throughout the rest of development, you'll reference various parts of the book to understand the details and avoid the hidden pitfalls in kernel mode programming. For experts, the book provides comprehensive treatment of the topic. It's full of tips and suggestions based on real-world experience. Many of the driver components on the CD-ROM can be integrated into real drivers in order to reduce development time and complexity. If you are creating a production driver that you intend to ship to real customers, the book will also provide you many options for creating a top-notch user experience during the install process. WHQL and driver security issues are addressed as well. The author updates the CD-ROM sources in service packs located on the web site. These updates are based on his continuing work and feedback from readers.
Rating:
Summary: If you're serious about WDM, you need this book!
Review: Walter Oney is an expert who doesn't talk down to you. There's a lot of gold in this well-written book, but to extract it happily you'll need a strong background in Windows programming, including first and foremost a couple of years of professional driver-writing experience for Win9X/NT platforms; in a few places, some knowledge of COM and MFC will also be helpful. Plug and Play, power management, and USB issues are covered in detail, as well as driver basics (from an advanced perspective), the intricacies of cancelling IRPs, etc. I like Oney's approach to teaching -- he concentrates on the logic of the few dozen basic steps needed to write a driver, leaving it to the samples on the accompanying CD to flesh out the skeleton. This has the advantage of highlighting the mechanics, and the often convoluted reasoning behind them, without sacrificing completeness. He identifies and analyzes many potential race conditions and other pitfalls that you might not think of on your own. One of the best things about the book is the tips and sidebars. Some examples: why you should use the PAGED_CODE macro and Driver Verifier when using Soft-Ice/W on Win2k; the hazards of using DDK "function calls" that are actually macros; how to ship a single binary for both Win2000 and Win98, given that Win98 doesn't support some key functions (such as those involving IO_REMOVE_LOCK) -- the book suggests writing a VDD with stubs for the missing functions, as explained in Appendix A. The sample code also contains very instructive workarounds for the shortcomings of Win98. Another strong point is the DEVQUEUE code that Oney has developed to extend the standard Windows driver model to handle PlugandPlay. In addition to including the code on the CD, he gives a detailed and highly instructive discussion in the text. DEVQUEUE is a useful tool that can be taken over as-is in your own projects. Once you've finished this book, you'll be writing much more solid code and have enough technique to pick and choose among methods of your choice, rather than feeling cornered and boxed-in. Oney maintains a web site with errata and updates for the book and code samples (for instance, the stub VDD is now replaced by a filter driver to avoid the need to reboot).
Rating:
Summary: If you're serious about WDM, you need this book!
Review: Walter Oney is an expert who doesn't talk down to you. There's a lot of gold in this well-written book, but to extract it happily you'll need a strong background in Windows programming, including first and foremost a couple of years of professional driver-writing experience for Win9X/NT platforms; in a few places, some knowledge of COM and MFC will also be helpful. Plug and Play, power management, and USB issues are covered in detail, as well as driver basics (from an advanced perspective), the intricacies of cancelling IRPs, etc. I like Oney's approach to teaching -- he concentrates on the logic of the few dozen basic steps needed to write a driver, leaving it to the samples on the accompanying CD to flesh out the skeleton. This has the advantage of highlighting the mechanics, and the often convoluted reasoning behind them, without sacrificing completeness. He identifies and analyzes many potential race conditions and other pitfalls that you might not think of on your own. One of the best things about the book is the tips and sidebars. Some examples: why you should use the PAGED_CODE macro and Driver Verifier when using Soft-Ice/W on Win2k; the hazards of using DDK "function calls" that are actually macros; how to ship a single binary for both Win2000 and Win98, given that Win98 doesn't support some key functions (such as those involving IO_REMOVE_LOCK) -- the book suggests writing a VDD with stubs for the missing functions, as explained in Appendix A. The sample code also contains very instructive workarounds for the shortcomings of Win98. Another strong point is the DEVQUEUE code that Oney has developed to extend the standard Windows driver model to handle PlugandPlay. In addition to including the code on the CD, he gives a detailed and highly instructive discussion in the text. DEVQUEUE is a useful tool that can be taken over as-is in your own projects. Once you've finished this book, you'll be writing much more solid code and have enough technique to pick and choose among methods of your choice, rather than feeling cornered and boxed-in. Oney maintains a web site with errata and updates for the book and code samples (for instance, the stub VDD is now replaced by a filter driver to avoid the need to reboot).
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