how can i build a driver using visual studio?

Question

does anyone have an article how to do this ?

Answer 1

Since you gave no exact version of Visual Studio, let me give you the options I am aware of.

Visual Studio 2012, 2013 and 2015

Respective contemporary DDK/WDK versions: WDKs 8, 8.1 and 10 (as of this writing).

With the WDK for Windows 8, the WDK team at Microsoft finally offers full integration with Visual Studio again directly from Microsoft.

However, while Visual Studio 2017 exists in minor version 15.4 already by the time of this update, the WDK still requires Visual Studio 2015.

Visual Studio 2002 through 2010

Respective contemporary DDK/WDK versions: DDKs for Windows XP/2003 Server, WDKs for Windows Vista and Windows 7 with their respective service pack levels and the respective server versions.

Those versions were not officially supported by Microsoft to build drivers. The only worse choice to compile a driver would be a complete third-party toolchain (other than Intel's C compiler which was sanctioned by MS, IIRC).

It was considered very bad form to use the Visual Studio compilers during that period, and Microsoft explicitly recommended against it. However, C++ in kernel mode was also once frowned upon and now MS provides C++ frameworks for kernel mode. The times they are changin' ... ;)

Anyway, workarounds exist in the form of ddkbuild.bat and ddkbuild.cmd which use the DDK toolchain, but effectively allow you to integrate the resulting invocation from your "make" project inside Visual Studio. DDKWizard is a project creation wizard for both of those scripts. DDKWizard does not support Visual Studio 2010! The links to the two scripts provide a good documentation and DDKWizard also comes with a decent documentation.

To my knowledge ddkbuild.cmd is originally based on ddkbuild.bat and the HollisTech version can also trace its heritage back to that version from OSR.

VisualDDK combined with VirtualKD emerged later than the aforementioned, but is to be considered a far superior, more sophisticated solution. But your mileage may vary. In either case the integration into Visual Studio is far more complete in the latter solution.

Visual Studio 6

Respective contemporary DDK/WDK versions: DDKs for Windows NT 4 and Windows 2000.

Prior to the Windows XP DDK (now DDK is called WDK) the compiler was not included in the DDK, so you had to have the compiler toolchain installed. This would be the case for NT 4.0 and Windows 2000.