Hardware Support

  • Article

Windows 2000 Professional supports devices compliant with the Human Interface Device (HID) firmware specification, the new standard for input devices, such as keyboards, mouse and pointing devices, joysticks, game pads, and other types of game controllers. HIDs also include a variety of controls for vehicle simulation, virtual reality, sports equipment, and appliances. Support is based on the specification developed by the USB Implementers Forum and is meant for devices connecting through USB. Windows 2000 Professional also includes HID support for devices connected through older interfaces.

The HID-compliant device is self-describing; it indicates its type and provides usage information when plugged into the host system.

For more information about the USB Implementers Forum and HID usage, see the USB link on the Web Resources page at https://windows.microsoft.com/windows2000/reskit/webresources .

Windows 2000 Professional provides support for HIDs through WDM. The operating system supplies the HID class driver, the HID minidriver, and the HID parser. Windows 2000 Professional includes complete support for the following types of standard HID input devices:

  • Keyboards and keypads

  • Mouse and pointing devices

  • Joysticks and game pads

You can plug these types of HID devices into the system and use them immediately. They do not require installation of additional software drivers.

The generality of the HID specification opens up the opportunity for new kinds of input devices. For example, HID use is defined for the following types of devices:

  • Simulation devices (for example, automobiles, planes, tanks, spaceships, and submarines)

  • Virtual reality devices (for example, belts, body suits, gloves, head trackers, head-mounted displays, and oculometers)

  • Sports-equipment devices (for example, golf clubs, baseball bats, rowing machines, and treadmills)

  • Consumer appliance devices (for example, audio and video appliances, and remote controls)

  • Advanced game controllers (for example, 3-D game controllers and pinball devices)

Support for Plug and Play and power management for USB/HID devices takes place within the USB driver stack that is part of the new WDM-based architecture.

From the perspective of a computer program, any HID device can be accessed either through HID APIs exposed by Hid.dll, or through DirectInput Component Object Model (COM) methods. DirectInput, which is part of Microsoft DirectX multimedia architecture, includes support for HID devices.

Windows 2000 Professional also supports HID devices that connect to the system through ports or buses other than those of Hidusb.sys. For example, the IEEE 1394 bus can be developed and supplied by vendors.

For more information about developing minidrivers and filter drivers, see the Driver Development Kits link on the Web Resources page at https://windows.microsoft.com/windows2000/reskit/webresources . For more information about supporting HID devices, see Device Management in this book.