Chapter 9

The Microsoft Windows 2000 I/O system consists of several executive components that together manage hardware devices and provide interfaces to hardware devices for applications and the system. In this chapter, we'll first list the design goals of the I/O system, which have influenced its implementation. We'll then cover the components that make up the I/O system, including the I/O manager, Plug and Play (PnP) manager, and power manager. Then we'll examine the structure and components of the I/O system and the various types of device drivers. We'll look at the key data structures that describe devices, device drivers, and I/O requests, after which we'll describe the way device detection and driver installation works. Finally, we'll go over the steps necessary to complete I/O requests as they move through the system.