User-Mode Drivers and Kernel-Mode Drivers

In Windows Embedded CE, drivers can be loaded into either the kernel space (kernel-mode drivers), or into a specialized user-mode drivers host process—Udevice.exe (user-mode drivers). The drivers loaded by the GWES and FileSys subsystems can only be kernel-mode drivers. The drivers loaded by the Device Manager (Device.dll) can be both kernel-mode drivers and user-mode drivers. By default, unless a special flag is set in the registry settings (DEVFLAGS_LOAD_AS_USERPROC(0x10)), a driver is loaded into the kernel space.

As mentioned earlier, drivers provide interfaces to a physical or virtual device. The quality, stability, and security of drivers determine the quality, stability, and security of the entire ...

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