Windows Integrity Application Development Environments

Microsoft Windows Driver Development Kit (DDK)

Microsoft Windows DDK, intended for developing Windows kernel-mode drivers, is a command-line

interface and includes a compiler, linker, and everything needed to build a driver. DDK also includes

everything needed to build almost any type of user-mode executable or dynamic link library. DDK is

fully functional and runs natively on IA64. DDK also supports cross-compilation from other targets (for

example, you can build on x86 for the IA64 target and vice versa). You can also build CLR and .Net

applications in this environment.

DDK relies on Makefile-like files called “sources” files. The syntax of sources file is included in the

online help reference. Anyone with prior driver building experience will be able to build using the

DDK very quickly and easily.

Typically, there is a version of the DDK associated with a major release of the operating system. At

the time of this writing, the latest DDK version is Windows Server 2003 DDK SP1. It is also frequently

used in conjunction with the SDK to allow complete user-mode builds to succeed.

Advantages:

 Platform portable, and easily automatable

 Native IA64 build

 New releases much more frequent –faster compiler updates possible

 Free

Disadvantages:

 Learning curve for writing or porting existing apps to sources file

 No IDE; must use an external editor

Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit (SDK)

Microsoft Windows Platform SDK, like the DDK, includes everything needed to build user-mode

applications. This environment is command-line driver but utilizes the Unix-style Makefiles. Anyone

familiar with Makefiles and the traditional UNIX build environment will become accustomed to the

SDK very quickly. The SDK includes other helpful tools to help debug and profile your application and

is compatible with CLR/.Net applications.

Microsoft updates the SDK less frequently than the DDK, but the SDK includes many more header files

and libraries, which you may need for a large application.

Advantages:

 Easily automatable

 Native IA64 build

 Free

Disadvantages:

 No GUI/IDE, have to use an external editor

 Some learning curve for Makefile conversion

Intel C++ Compiler 9.0

The Intel C++ compiler suite resembles the Microsoft SDK package. It is meant to be plugged into the

older Visual Studio packages (v6, 7), but a new version allows integration into VS2005 as well.