Telling them “the WDK needs this” only goes so far. No Windows dev, when working on the kernel (let’s say) is going to worry about getting the 32-bit defines in the native headers correct, when there are no more 32-bit OS builds being produced. As you a probably also know, Microsoft is no longer building 32-bit versions of Windows. These files are composed of extracts from actual, native, Windows OS header files. In fact, the key header files (wdm.h, ntddk.h, and ntifs.h) are actually “synthetic” files that are created during the build process. As you probably know, the WDK is built as part of the Windows build process. If you’re wondering why Microsoft made these decisions, maybe I can help explain. Heck, for the last few releases, nothing about using the WDK has been without pain. Our experience here at OSR with using SxS VS and WDK installs hasn’t exactly been without pain. You’ll have to excuse me if I’m a bit skeptical of this claim. Microsoft assures us that “side by side” (SxS) installation of the VS 2019 and the old Windows 11 WDK and VS 2022 and the new Windows 11 22H2 works, and is supported. And, yes… as long as that works, that is a possible way forward. Microsoft would have us continue to use the “old” Windows 11 WDK hosted on VS 2019 to build drivers for the platforms that are no longer supported. That means there are lots of companies that need to be able to update the drivers for their hardware or software (I’m looking at you, file system minifilter people) on those systems. Remember that only a couple of years ago (2020) Microsoft was still building, releasing, and supporting 32-bit version of Windows 10. Microsoft can wish what they want, but it is beyond question that there is still a significant installed base of Windows 7 and 32-bit Windows systems. These new restrictions will come as unwelcome news to many in the driver development community. No support for building 32-bit drivers, for any platform, x86 or ARM, or for any OS version including 32-bit Windows 10.This means that it’s no longer possible to use the latest WDK to build drivers that support Windows 7 or Windows 8, or Windows 8.1. No support for building drivers that target any Windows version before Windows 10.There are some nice new features in VS 2022, including native 64-bit support (for the IDE itself) and support for C++ 20.īut, alas, there are a few surprises lurking in this most recent WDK release. Given that many (if not most) Windows driver developers these days often also write some sort of application code, having one tool chain that supports both jobs is both useful and most welcome. This new version of the WDK is only support on VS 2022. This version is referred to as the Windows 11 Version 22H2 WDK.
It took “a while” but, without any fanfare, sometime in May of 2022, Microsoft released a version of the Windows Driver Kit (WDK) that supports Visual Studio (VS) 2022.
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