Making Simple Windows Driver in C

[@bmx666bmx666]

0 water, 100% short and useful information. Thanks!

[@badtrip858]

It is almost comical that when searching for a video about Windows Drivers' Development so far, I was only getting results from 10 years ago that have completely given up on that specific matter so the information on these outdated videos is also minimal, and now, out of nowhere, I bumped into this video on my home page. I'd really love to see more guides concerning drivers' development. That was incredible.

[@matteoveraldi.musica]

Same

[@israelperezmasle6673]

I wasn't even looking, it just popped up

[@johnmarks714]

Pavel Yosifovich is another good source. Dont know about his videos, but he's written good low level programming type books, such as device driver dev and theyre current.

[@Алексей-ч4у3з]

so there are no new episodes and this video is more HELLO WORLD than really driver development guide

[@harleyspeedthrust4013]

There's great stuff on msdn

[@georgeadrianstefan1676]

Another episode of: Things I will never do but watch anyway because i like them.

[@lucianprl]

at least I'm not the only one who does this :)))

[@mr.t9816]

Oh now i understand why this very very specific video has 250k+ views lol.

[@sadiulhakim7814]

@@lucianprl Same here

[@BarryKawooya-c3g]

Everything to get you started with drivers

[@johnshaw6702]

I liked it. I haven't written a driver in 25 years, but I see things have changed. Short but sweet.

[@szyszqu]

Damn, at the beginning I couldn't even tell if it was Linux or Windows with that DWM bar, looks amazing!

[@nirlichtman]

dwm-win32 :)

[@preludelight]

I thought "There's no way a sub 8 minute video is going to be enough to be informative for a topic like this." I was completely wrong. This was well paced, straight forward, and better than I could have imagined. This will be the go-to video I send to people who want to start with kernel mode dev but don't understand quite where to get started. Also: What shell replacement are you using, It looks swell!

[@nirlichtman]

Thanks! :) I use a port of Suckless dwm for Windows called dwm-win32, it actually sits on top of the shell and does not replace it but rather it works by managing the existing windows and listening to newly created ones

[@cocosloan3748]

Do not encourage this fellow... Next time he will do it in 4 minutes and I wont get it at all 😢

[@jyothishkumar3098]

​@@nirlichtman Much like xoblite or Kera desktop

[@madghostek3026]

extremely good tutorial, coincise, no pauses, everything planned

[@nyzss]

incredible content, I would love to see more videos that introduce or expend on more low level concepts. thank you!

[@shauryayamdagni]

expand

[@johnmarks714]

Please expand

[@yabbaso]

Yes please, taking these to the next level

[@Potew]

I wonder how much knowledge and IQ is needed for making all these steps with such easiness. Thanks for the video!

[@Speed4Runs]

It amazes me how someone can be both a CS geek and cute at the same time I've always been interested in drivers development, but despite having both hardware/electronics and kernel knowledge, I had no idea of where to start for drivers, ESPECIALLY on Windows. Thanks!

[@nirlichtman]

Thanks for the compliment :)

[@runninggames771]

lmao bro got rizzed on a fucking driver tutorial

[@Speed4Runs]

@@runninggames771 could you believe it? Being weird and coding really bring the most unexpected parts of people

[@gatonegro187]

eww gay

[@felipemurta9160]

@@runninggames771lmaoo

[@g4yktzgjx6]

Video starts "Before you start writing a driver" Wait.. You skipped 6 steps. "Hello", "Subscribe", "Like", "Sponsor", "Basic shit you should know before even clicking the video", and "Thank you". Overall. Nice, short, and concise video. More of this please!

[@NullCyan]

Please make more Windows low level programming, this is awesome! suggestion: tutorials on C windows api

[@ufufuawa401]

How bout Native API Programming :3 ?

[@NullCyan]

@@ufufuawa401 true :3

[@dsihacks]

@@ufufuawa401 aint no way we making our own csrss.exe 💀

[@awaismushtaq5719]

@@ufufuawa401 couldn't agree more. We all need to know how things used to be during good old days

[@dtikvxcdgjbv7975]

I love Your work. Very helpful. You proved us that creating a driver is not a rocket science. Now some humorous stuff. When I saw the driver not stopping from executing, I expected that You'll like a true programmer make fun of it by saying: "OMG, how is this thing stopping?"

[@waleedalrashed1411]

Even though I learned about drivers back in Uni. It was all theory. your 7-minute long video was the missing piece. Like your video style, not asking for [like , share, comment] just straight to the point with no pauses. Appreciate your hard work. p.s: liked , shared, subed ✅

[@nirlichtman]

Thanks :)

[@HarperLee1840]

That's quality content I want on KZbin. Great video sir.

[@uschurch]

You have the best programming tutorials.👌If everyone made their tutorials as concise and terse KZbin could free half of its storage.😂

[@nirlichtman]

Thanks! :)

[@stefanosbek]

I absolutely love these. Short but informational.

[@chipling7367]

Thank you so much Nir, that's the kind of video I enjoyed the most. Short and informative. No BS. Thanks again.

[@rohitjacob803]

Finally someone decided to put out on a tutorial on writing windows driver instead of linux

[@abdullahtrees5204]

This is an excellent video! To the point, concise and beautifully simple! Thanks a lot

[@GrindAlchemyTech]

You explain very well....the delivery is rare ....many videos I've watched...it's rare to get explanations that actually explain things if that makes sense... thank you ♌🙌🏽💗

[@nirlichtman]

Thanks! :)

[@faustasazuolasbagdonas123]

Short and straight to the point 👍. Subscribed.

[@orcofnbu]

i feel so lucky that i found this content. just wow

[@HumanGamer]

I've been wanting to know windows driver dev for years and suddenly you make this video! Thank you. Would you be able to do more tutorials on windows drivers? For example, what about a driver for a virtual floppy disc or something? I'd love to see that.

[@nirlichtman]

Yes, planning on more driver/kernel level videos, it's a very interesting subject :)

[@sameerakhatoon9508]

@@nirlichtman would love to watch more on this

[@Acradasa]

i can't get enough of your content, it's that good!

[@joab83]

simple, concise and excellent for learning basic concepts!

[@Songfugel]

Wow, this was an amazing video! so clear and so informative without skipping any steps (like sadly so many do) that are "obvious" to people who this every day

[@formlessone2807]

Well done - succinct, hits the important points. Thanks for this!

[@597das]

are you using a tiling window manager within windows? or do you just have multiple instances of a vm on different linux workspeces? if so, what tiling window manager are you using? I tried komorebi a few years back but it was pretty early in development back then.

[@ardnys35]

that looks like i3 and it's a nice wm for linux. seeing it on windows is kinda cursed but it got me curious too. anyways maybe give i3 a try, it's pretty easy to setup and configure

[@nirlichtman]

@597das I use a port of Suckless dwm for Windows called dwm-win32, more information on the vid about my setup

[@vladislavkaras491]

It was interesting to watch how to create a simple driver! Thanks for the video!

[@ciscornBIG]

HELL YEAH! I'll check this out this later today. Thanks, broseph!

[@none_of_your_business]

Interesting, after 10 years of linux kernel programming, I never knew that windows also has something akin to dmesg, I also love how short and to the point this was. Kol hakavod.

[@nirlichtman]

Toda! It's somewhat similar to dmesg but also different since dmesg shows you the kernel log buffer and the program dbgview just connects as a debugger to the user mode programs/kernel and shows you debug prints (although it does have a feature to log boot)

[@jbray250]

Fantastic tutorial and well explained, subscribed and looking forward to more

[@BigA1]

Not being a full time programmer, I would like to see a 'Real World' example of what a driver is and what it can do, if that's possible?

[@nirlichtman]

Yes, I plan on making a more general video about drivers as well :)

[@TheNewKill1212]

I've been developing kernelmode driver for anti-cheat system, used assembly on x86 and ObRegisterCallbacks on x64. This is one of the examples. Another example is a device driver as you can access everything from kernel, you can for example ask PCI device directly.

[@GuildOfCalamity]

Never seen this explained so succinctly, bravo! Could you do another tutorial for creating a driver to talk to a USB device?

[@nirlichtman]

Thanks! Noted, that is a good idea :)

[@complexity5545]

I was trying to refresh making microsoft drivers. Good video.

[@alexandrohdez3982]

Driver is complex, thank you 👏👏👏👏

[@mattmurphy7030]

This is exactly the kind of stuff I want to see. Thanks!

[@pascalcoole2725]

Nir, thanks, i don't understand anything about MicroSoft Windows, running Linux since 1994 as wel as some UNICES. Your video however is the first interesting instruction on MicroSoft development i have ever seen. Main interesting thing is that you actualy show whats happening iso obfuscating the whole process using an IDE.

[@progste]

Very well made and without wasting time!

[@jonweinraub]

Really fantastic how the algorithm shows something I didn’t think I wanted to learn but now I do. Why though you needed the two voided parameters but wasn’t used on call with null unless I missed something. תודה

[@nirlichtman]

That is just to follow the entry point signature according to the docs which specifies that the driver entry gets two parameters, I did not used the information passed into these parameters so I just ignored them. בכיף 🙂

[@netanelkomm5636]

הופתעתי ושמחתי באותו זמן לגלות שאתה ישראלי כשראיתי ״שבת, 02 דצמבר״ :)

[@nirlichtman]

:)

[@emblink27]

Watched the video. Added driver development to my cv 😁

[@illusoryknowledge9307]

The couple cringe comments bashing Vim or C is laughable and makes one question if they even know programming. Great video, most have sought profit by means of their 20 minute diatribes, inefficiently transmitting that thing called knowledge. This is a pleasant contrast.

[@sinaghaderi9184]

Nice video 👍🏼 Ps: now i understand the beauty of the linux kernel.. way more cooler and easier to write a kernel module 🧑‍💻

[@nirlichtman]

Thanks!

[@indianbandhu]

Holy Sh**!...Dam it so precise, so concise tutorial..freaking amazing!!!🤩

[@ilyastoletov]

Nice video. I certainly won't write any drivers for Windows but the commands' syntax of Windows shell is quite interesting, although similar to Linux

[@深夜酒吧]

how to get your driver certified by ms? how much money does it take to do that?

[@tamirrothschild]

לא יודע איך הגעתי לפה אבל כל הכבוד לך ובהצלחה עם הערוץ

[@nirlichtman]

תודה!

[@m.gredemptor2610]

Man after looking at C-Drive for 20 years, your title just gave me a brain fart 😂.

[@siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuu]

did this guy just entered PC godmode? yes!

[@nostromza3433]

How do you sign the driver?

[@Rombizio]

The cmd prompt to compile this alone make me cry. The extra steps to make it work put me in fetal position.

[@gaeshows1938]

It’s better to debug your driver inside a VM to avoid having to restart your PC every time you get a BSOD

[@paradoxicalcat7173]

The first time I wrote a Windows driver I didn't BSOD the machine once. Driver dev isn't for you if you can't handle memory.

[@kern776]

You are ANGEL!! Thank you buddy, i suscribed )) thanks

[@test-rj2vl]

If you just want to play around and learn I would suggest using VirtualBox or VMware or something similar. Then you don't have to restart. Also if you brick your computer like infinite boot loop or something then with VM you just restore previous snapshot and you are ready to go again.

[@karlm9584]

This is great thank you. I never knew how to create services like that. Would that service also show up in Windows services?

[@nirlichtman]

It won't show up in the services application since it is technically not a service but a kernel driver (I ran sc with type= kernel), SC supports also creating and loading drivers and calls them also "services" but you can see it is a driver by looking at the type (with sc query for example) and seeing that it says "KERNEL_DRIVER".

[@hoteny]

4:30 so back in 2020 i think, I tried vjoy driver installation but failed because it wasnt signed. I enabled test mode and it still didnt work. Now vjoy is signed by someone who loves paying hundreds of dollars a year but i still dont get how test mode didnt work at all…

[@jackgerberuae]

What would you do with a driver though. All hardware drivers are supplied by MS or the vendor, right?

[@dylanh333]

Access and manipulate kernel data structures normally not available in userland, implement file system filters, hook system calls, etc. The term "driver" in Windows tends to more generically refer to kernel modules (in Linux terminology), rather than just stuff for "driving" actual hardware. That said, you do also have some "user-mode drivers" that *are* for driving hardware, and don't run in kernel mode ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

[@jackgerberuae]

@@dylanh333 that is a very clear explanation, thank you 🙏

[@kcirtaP69]

If "sc create driverName binPath= C:\path\to\driver.sys type= kernel" is giving you an error try using sc.exe

[@onurguzel16]

Very nice topic and indeed what I'm really interested in kernel mode drivers, many thanks. However, just being curious, at 05:49, why didn't compiler emit an error eventhough you left one space after "binPath=" then typing the path after this a space in final stage?

[@dylanh333]

That command wasn't a compiler - sc.exe (I believe) stands for Service Control (similar in function to `systemctl` on a Linux system with systemd), and it has some pretty funky and nonstandard command line syntax, including the values for named parameters requiring leading whitespace. Under the hood in Windows, drivers are also "services" too, hence why this was used to register the driver as a service and then subsequently start it.

[@autohmae]

sc just handles services as mentioned by dylanh333. Their is a tool called: srvman from SysProgs. This can show you all drivers are also services.

[@onurguzel16]

@@dylanh333 ah, yes, I know it was SC command, sure. Just weird that it completed fine with white space after equals sign (and no enclosing quotation marks for the path, maybe because of the path had no any space, that's another thing) which I wanted to know. Same also happens for "type" parameter in the same command call leaving one space again. Thanks friend.

[@kinershah464]

Awesome, nice and simple. 👍

[@SeanChYT]

Is there any way to install custom certificates or anything so that we can sign our own drivers? Disabling driver signature verification permanently is becoming very difficult on modern Windows versions if I remember correctly. It used to be easier.

[@DeadCat-42]

I used to make all kinds of genetic print drivers for hp laser printers to get around the bloat ware they pushed.

[@MNE-yk8vp]

no intro, no curve ball, just straight nerd-ery

[@HimanshuShekhar1]

This is super awesome channel. Thank you

[@michaeldonoghue9015]

Great video. I would just add that you should always wear your seatbelt when writing a driver. Safety first.

[@jasdfff770]

I don't quite understand what a driver does. What is the difference from a "normal" program? And isn't a driver a specific program that a hardware uses to communivate with the OS? If so, the driver you created doesn't have any hardaware attached to it. If you could explain to me... thanks!

[@josephdaquila2479]

I don't seem to be seeing the "km" folder. I'm wondering if there was something I had to do beforehand to gain access to that folder. I see a "um" folder, presumably "user mode". EDIT: followed the guide for downloading the SDK and the WDK and we're good now. I guess what was already installed in the directory only included the user mode directory "um".

[@strange1702]

would be cool to see c++ version of drivers as well as how to sign a driver (:

[@0o29k2]

just write ur code in c++, cl is a c++ compiler

[@paradoxicalcat7173]

C++ isn't supported in kernel driver development as it uses memory in ways kernel mode drivers can't support due to the nature of memory management in the kernel.

[@strange1702]

@@paradoxicalcat7173 tf you talking about, it is supported, i have been writing kernel drivers for a decade now in c++ obviously...

[@strange1702]

@paradoxicalcat7173 literally usermode functions such as readprocessmemory is streamed from kernel... what you said is basically "i cant read this book, because its in French, and translations are impossible"

[@kamugishajoseph6467]

The precise video about drivers development. Can you continue and create executable file for driver ?

[@Veso266]

Nice Would love to see a more detail video like how to comunicate with a driver from ur user program Suppose u are making a device driver, so how would u get data in and out of it with ur user program so u could comunicate with a device on the other side of a driver?

[@nirlichtman]

That is a good idea for a future video, thanks :)

[@clyxos3405]

How did you get the dwm looking desktop?

[@nirlichtman]

I use a port of Suckless dwm for Windows, more info on the vid about my setup

[@samholland209]

5:11 What language is that on your laptop's lock screen?

[@nirlichtman]

Hebrew

[@ohioisbruh]

Just have a doubt... How to implement this driver onto a device... cuz today most devices are plug & play...

[@saecula2391]

Klasse Video Vielen Dank, kurz und kompakt ... btw Ich benutze u.a. Visual Studio hauptberuflich ✨

[@defaultentertainment697]

nice albums on the wall man, starset and breaking benjamin.

[@nirlichtman]

Thanks! 🤘

[@defaultentertainment697]

@@nirlichtman i religiously listen to downplay's saturday album on every saturday, starting with it's saturday song.

[@nirlichtman]

@@defaultentertainment697 Nice song! has some early Breaking Benjamin vibes :) I like the original Downplay version of Dark on Me

[@madpsyber636]

what tiling manager are u using for windows i cant find a good one that i can easily customize

[@nirlichtman]

I use a port of Suckless dwm called dwm-win32, more info on the vid about my setup

[@binks3371]

can you do more driver videos ? Like how to write a simple filesystem driver.

[@nirlichtman]

Yes, more driver videos are planned :)

[@duckydude20]

thanks 😊 i want to get started with windows internals. mostly for re stuff. any suggestions

[@nirlichtman]

I would recommend starting with checking out the sysinternals suite and learning and playing around with windbg (both of which are available on the winget package manager), good luck!

[@lPlanetarizado]

there is a book called "windows internals" (the last one, 7 edition) that has 2 volumes and its a great introduction to windows, and learning to set up a kernel debugging session with a VM is huge, tho i recommend normal debugging first , kernel debugging can be overwhelming if you are not familiar

[@roncato7]

Can you provide an e2e example next?

[@ok-gp7gr]

I'm getting error startservice failed 577, "Windows cannot verify the digital signature for this file". I have checked that I have done the step where you disabled the Windows driver signature enforcement; am I missing a step?

[@BrandoMusicX]

I don't have any "km" dir in the path you specified, what can I do?

[@nirlichtman]

Sounds like you haven't installed the Windows Driver Kit, check out the description for required installations

[@BrandoMusicX]

@@nirlichtman oh thank you, I felt like I had installed it correctly but apparently not 😅. Thank you very much for answering.

[@bgill7475]

Excellent and straight to the point, thank you very much! 🙂

[@isyankarmakarna9865]

wxcuse me. please tell me how can i write a keyboard driver for autopress. forexample it can be autopressd "z" when the notepad open.

[@RiadAhmed-ce6qo]

Nice one 👍 is that working with hive and hardware abstraction layer ?

[@DrVektor]

Thank you for this example.

[@dzwassim95]

nice

[@soyysaucceee]

Nice video! deserve likes and subs

[@oldiemcfee]

Can you do one for mac/unix systems?

[@nirlichtman]

I have one for Linux, check out making a simple kernel module on my linux kernel playlist

[@ahwbjsjianwekem8311]

isnt `bcdedit -set testsigning on` enough dor it to load?

[@amuga_1]

Good day. In my windows sdk folder there is not km/ directory

[@nirlichtman]

Have you also installed the Windows Driver Kit? (info in description)

[@amuga_1]

@nirlichtman I actually had to install it from Microsoft website because it was not in the directory despite installing it using Visual Studio Installer. Surprisingly installing windows driver kit (wdk) from Microsoft websites installs a standalone directory inside Lib called wdf. Then there's kmdf and umdf folders 📂. Like what's up Microsoft haha. And I found km inside the SDK I downloaded from Microsoft Website

[@anon_y_mousse]

Any chance you'd know how to do this for Win98? I've got a copy of VS6 and it might be neat to play around with it in this way.

[@ThamanKumariThapa]

Can you create a color button in c++ ?

[@Kalo_lpader]

What is the drive good for?

[@lilhaxxor]

Very nice. Things I want to know: - Is the "cl" compiler "Clang" or something else ? - What happens when you crash a driver ? Do you know the procedure to handle that safely or is it a guaranteed blue screen ?

[@nirlichtman]

- "cl" is the Visual Studio compiler - unless you tell it to compile only, it also calls the linker after it finishes compiling (in the video I passed to cl flags for the compiler and for the linker) - You can handle exceptions in the driver safely - more information here: learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/kernel/handling-exceptions

[@stati5tik]

can you make a video showing how to communicate from a driver with actual hardware that is connected via usb?

[@nirlichtman]

Yes, it is on the list :)

[@stati5tik]

@@nirlichtman nice (-:

[@duyhung.30]

sir how to have dwm like that in windows. thank you for great conents btw

[@Sl33pySt3rdust]

im not sure what im doing wrong, but im always getting a message saying "Windows cannot verify the digital signature for this file. A recent hardware or software change might have installed a file that is signed incorrectly or damaged, or that might be malicious software from an unknown source."

[@nirlichtman]

Have you booted Windows with driver signature checking disabled, as I demonstrated in the video?

[@Sl33pySt3rdust]

@@nirlichtman i watched that part of the video again and it works now, thanks