Winusb Device Driver Download For Windows 10

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Nickie Koskinen

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Aug 3, 2024, 10:41:21 AM8/3/24

to althiacresti

I need to communicate with a simple custom device directly through USB. I have full specifications for communication protocol. Unfortunately, the device vendor did not provide WinUSB driver for the device.

As I understand, it is looking for a signed .cat file. But in this case I have no any files to sign nor .cat file. I just want to install Windows own WinUSB driver for the device, and clearly Windows drivers should be signed by Microsoft.

If you only care about supporting Windows 8.1 and later, and you have the ability to change the device's firmware, you might consider using Microsoft OS 2.0 Descriptors. This will allow a Windows computer to recognize the device as a WinUSB device and automatically load the WinUSB driver.

Another option would be to use Zadig or the related library libwdi to install the driver for your device. I would only recommend this for small, temporary, or organization-internal installations since it is kind of a hack (it installs its own certificate into your Trusted Root Certification Authorities list).

If none of those options are going to work for you, then you need to look into buying a code-signing certificate from a certificate authority and signing your driver. Code signing for Windows is an ever-evolving field but my article Practical Windows Code and Driver Signing attempts to document what you need to know.

The information in this article applies to you if you are an OEM or independent hardware vendor (IHV) developing a device for which you want to use Winusb.sys as the function driver and want to load the driver automatically without having to provide a custom INF.

The purpose of a WinUSB device is to enable Windows to load Winusb.sys as the device's function driver without a custom INF file. For a WinUSB device, you are not required to distribute INF files for your device, making the driver installation process simple for end users. Conversely, if you need to provide a custom INF, you should not define your device as a WinUSB device and specify the hardware ID of the device in the INF.

Before Windows 8, to load Winusb.sys as the function driver, you needed to provide a custom INF. The custom INF specifies the device-specific hardware ID and also includes sections from the in-box Winusb.inf. Those sections are required for instantiating the service, copying inbox binaries, and registering a device interface GUID that applications required to find the device and talk to it. For information about writing a custom INF, see WinUSB (Winusb.sys) Installation.

The "USBDevice" setup class is available for those devices for which Microsoft does not provide an in-box driver. Typically, such devices do not belong to well-defined USB classes such as Audio, Bluetooth, and so on, and require a custom driver. If your device is a WinUSB device, most likely, the device does not belong to a USB class. Therefore, your device must be installed under "USBDevice" setup class. The updated Winusb.inf facilitates that requirement.

Do not use the "USB" setup class for unclassified devices. That class is reserved for installing controllers, hubs, and composite devices. Misusing the "USB" class can lead to significant reliability and performance issues. For unclassified devices, use "USBDevice".

In Device Manager, you will see your device appear under USB Universal Serial Bus devices. However, the device class description is derived from the registry setting specified in your INF.

During device enumeration, the USB driver stack reads the compatible ID from the device. If the compatible ID is "WINUSB", Windows uses it as the device identifier and finds a match in the updated in-box Winusb.inf, and then loads Winusb.sys as the device's function driver.

For versions of Windows earlier than Windows 8, the updated Winusb.inf is available through Windows Update. If your computer is configured to get driver update automatically, WinUSB driver will get installed without any user intervention by using the new INF package.

For a WinUSB device, Device Manager shows "WinUsb Device" as the device description. That string is derived from Winusb.inf. If there are multiple WinUSB devices, all devices get the same device description.

To uniquely identify and differentiate the device in Device Manager, Windows 8 provides a new property on a device class that instructs the system to give precedence to the device description reported by the device (in its iProduct string descriptor) over the description in the INF. The "USBDevice" class defined in Windows 8 sets this property. In other words, when a device is installed under "USBDevice" class, system queries the device for a device description and sets the Device Manager string to whatever is retrieved in the query. In that case, the device description provided in the INF is ignored. Notice the device description strings: "MUTT" in the preceding image. The string is provided by the USB device in its product string descriptor.

To identify a USB device as a WinUSB device, the device firmware must have Microsoft OS Descriptors. For information about the descriptors, see the specifications described here: Microsoft OS Descriptors.

In order for the USB driver stack to know that the device supports extended feature descriptors, the device must define an OS string descriptor that is stored at string index 0xEE. During enumeration, the driver stack queries for the string descriptor. If the descriptor is present, the driver stack assumes that the device contains one or more OS feature descriptors and the data that is required to retrieve those feature descriptors.

The extended compatible ID OS feature descriptor includes a header section followed by one or more function sections depending on whether the device is a composite or non-composite device. The header section specifies the length of the entire descriptor, number of function sections, and version number. For a non-composite device, the header is followed by one function section associated with the device's only interface. The compatibleID field of that section must specify "WINUSB" as the field value. For a composite device, there are multiple function sections. The compatibleID field of each function section must specify "WINUSB".

An extended properties OS feature descriptor that is required to register its device interface GUID. The GUID is required to find the device from an application or service, configure the device, and perform I/O operations.

In previous versions of Windows, device interface GUID registration is done through the custom INF. Starting in Windows 8, your device should report the interface GUID by using extended properties OS feature descriptor.

The extended properties OS feature descriptor includes a header section that is followed by one or more custom property sections. The header section describes the entire extended properties descriptor, including its total length, the version number, and the number of custom property sections. To register the device interface GUID, add a custom property section that sets the bPropertyName field to "DeviceInterfaceGUID" and wPropertyNameLength to 40 bytes. Generate a unique device interface GUID by using a GUID generator and set the bPropertyData field to that GUID, such as "8FE6D4D7-49DD-41E7-9486-49AFC6BFE475". The GUID is specified as a Unicode string and the length of the string is 78 bytes (including the null terminator).

During device enumeration, The USB driver stack then retrieves the DeviceInterfaceGUID value from the extended properties OS feature descriptor and registers the device in the device's hardware key. An application can retrieve the value by using SetupDiXxx APIs (See SetupDiOpenDevRegKey). For more information, see How to Access a USB Device by Using WinUSB Functions.

In Windows 8 and later, you can specify power settings in device. You can report values through the extended properties OS feature descriptor that enable or disable features in WinUSB for that device. There are two features that we can be configured: selective suspend and system wake. Selective suspend allows the device to enter low-power state when it is idle. System wake refers to the ability to a device to wake up a system when the system is in low-power state.

For example, to enable selective suspend on the device, add a custom property section that sets the bPropertyName field to a Unicode string, "DeviceIdleEnabled" and wPropertyNameLength to 36 bytes. Set the bPropertyData field to "0x00000001". The property values are stored as little-endian 32-bit integers.

As an OEM or independent hardware vendor (IHV), you can build your device so that the Winusb.sys gets installed automatically on Windows 8 and later versions of the operating system. Such a device is called a WinUSB device and doesn't require you to write a custom INF file that references in-box Winusb.inf.

If Universal Serial Bus devices doesn't appear in the list of device classes, then you need to install the driver by using a custom INF.The preceding procedure doesn't add a device interface GUID for an app (UWP app or Windows desktop app) to access the device. You must add the GUID manually by following this procedure.

Under the Device Parameters key, add a String registry entry named DeviceInterfaceGUID or a Multi-String entry named DeviceInterfaceGUIDs. Set the value to the GUID you generated in step 2.

The following example .inf file shows WinUSB installation for most USB devices with some modifications, such as changing USB_Install in section names to an appropriate DDInstall value. You should also change the version, manufacturer, and model sections as necessary. For example, provide an appropriate manufacture's name, the name of your signed catalog file, the correct device class, and the vendor identifier (VID) and product identifier (PID) for the device. For info on creating a catalog file, see Creating a Catalog File for Test-Signing a Driver Package.