Download the Windows Driver Kit (WDK) - Windows drivers (2024)

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  • 5 minutes to read

Note

Due to a regression, it's not possible to debug drivers within the Visual Studio interface when using Visual Studio 2022 version 17.2.0 and the Windows 11, version 22H2 WDK. To work around the problem, debug with WinDbg or use a version of Visual Studio earlier than 17.2.0.The following error messages are related to the regression:

  • The service ‘Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Interop.SVsUIShell’ must be installed for this feature to work. Ensure that this service is available.
  • The 'Microsoft.Windows.Tools.WinIDE.Debugger.DebuggerPackage, DebuggerPackage, Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' package did not load correctly.

The WDK is used to develop, test, and deploy drivers for Windows.

  • Learn what's new in driver development
  • Review known issues

Join the Windows Insider Program to get WDK Insider Preview builds. For installation instructions for the Windows Insider Preview builds, see Installing preview versions of the Windows Driver Kit (WDK).

Starting with the Windows 11, version 22H2 release of the WDK and EWDK, the kits support:

  • Visual Studio 2022 exclusively
  • Building and testing kernel-mode drivers for x64 and Arm64
  • Building and testing drivers for Windows 10, Windows Server 2016 and later client and server versions
  • Side by side (SxS) support with previous WDK/EWDK

Multiple WDKs and EWDKs can be installed concurrently on the same computer and even be part of same build system. You can run the Windows 11, version 22H2 WDK on Windows 7 and later.

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To target Windows 8.1, Windows 8, and Windows 7, you will need to install an older WDK and an older version of Visual Studio either on the same machine or on a separate machine. For links to older kits, see Other WDK downloads.

Certain device-specific stacks (for example graphics) continue to have x86/ARM32 user-mode components to support x86/ARM32 apps.

Starting with this release, WDF redistributable co-installers are no longer supported.

Note

On a computer that has both the Windows 11, version 22H2 WDK and an older WDK, when building a WDF 1.11 driver, msbuild fails because it cannot find the WDF coinstaller. To fix this problem, before installing Windows 11, version 22H2 WDK, back up the folder \Program files (x86)\windows kit\10\redist\wdf and restore it afterwards. Alternatively, if you have already installed the Windows 11, version 22H2 WDK, install the MSI file at WDK 8 redistributable components on a separate computer and copy the redist folder to the above folder. For more information, see Redistributable Framework Components.

Download and install the Windows 11, version 22H2 WDK

Download the Windows Driver Kit (WDK) - Windows drivers (1) Step 1: Install Visual Studio 2022

The WDK requires Visual Studio. For more information about system requirements for Visual Studio, see Visual Studio 2022 System Requirements.

The following editions of Visual Studio 2022 support driver development for this release:

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  • Download Visual Studio Community 2022
  • Download Visual Studio Professional 2022
  • Download Visual Studio Enterprise 2022

When you install Visual Studio 2022, select the Desktop development with C++ workload. The Windows 11, version 22H2 Software Development Kit (SDK) that is compatible with the Windows 11, version 22H2 WDK is not included in Visual Studio. Please use the SDK download link in step 2 below.

WDK has Spectre mitigation enabled by default but requires Spectre mitigated libraries to be installed with Visual Studio for each architecture you are developing for. Additionally, developing drivers for Arm/Arm64/Arm64EC require the build tools for these architectures to also be installed with Visual Studio. To locate these items, you will need to know the latest version of MSVC installed on your system.

To find the latest version of MSVC installed on your system, in Visual Studio Installer go to workload page, on the right pane under installation details, expand Desktop development with C++ and locate the MSVC v143 - VS 2022 C++ x64/x86 build tools (Latest).

With this information (Latest), go to Individual components and search for Latest. This will return the tool sets for all architectures, including Spectre mitigated libs. Select the driver architecture you are developing for.

For example, searching for Latest returns the following:

MSVC v143 - VS 2022 C++ Arm build tools (Latest)MSVC v143 - VS 2022 C++ Arm Spectre-mitigated libs (Latest)MSVC v143 - VS 2022 C++ Arm64 build tools (Latest)MSVC v143 - VS 2022 C++ Arm64 Spectre-mitigated libs (Latest)MSVC v143 - VS 2022 C++ Arm64EC build tools (Latest - experimental)MSVC v143 - VS 2022 C++ Arm64EC Spectre-mitigated libs (Latest - experimental)MSVC v143 - VS 2022 C++ x64/x86 build tools (Latest)MSVC v143 - VS 2022 C++ x64/x86 Spectre-mitigated libs (Latest)

Download the Windows Driver Kit (WDK) - Windows drivers (2) Step 2: Install Windows 11, version 22H2 SDK

  • Download Windows 11, version 22H2 SDK

This SDK must be installed separately until available through Visual Studio

Download the Windows Driver Kit (WDK) - Windows drivers (3) Step 3: Install Windows 11, version 22H2 WDK

  • Download WDK for Windows 11, version 22H2

The WDK Visual Studio extension is included in the default WDK installation.

Tip

If you can't find driver project templates in Visual Studio, the WDK Visual Studio extension didn't install properly. To resolve this, run the WDK.vsix file from this location: C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Vsix\VS2022\10.0.22621.0\WDK.vsix.

Enterprise WDK (EWDK)

The EWDK is a standalone, self-contained command-line environment for building drivers. It includes Visual Studio Build Tools, the SDK, and the WDK. The latest public version of the EWDK contains Visual Studio 2022 Build Tools 17.1.5 and MSVC toolset v14.31. To get started, mount the ISO and run LaunchBuildEnv.

The EWDK also requires the .NET Framework version 4.7.2. For more information about other requirements for the .NET Framework, see .NET Framework system requirements.

Download the Windows Driver Kit (WDK) - Windows drivers (4) Windows 11, version 22H2 EWDK with Visual Studio Build Tools

  • Download the Windows 11, version 22H2 EWDK

You can use the Visual Studio interface with the build tools provided in the EWDK.

  1. Mount the EWDK ISO.
  2. Run LaunchBuildEnv.cmd.
  3. In the environment created in step 2, type SetupVSEnv, and then press Enter.
  4. Launch devenv.exe from the same environment, using the full file path.Example: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\%Community|Professional|Enterprise%\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe"

Note that the Visual Studio major version should match with the version in the EWDK. For example, Visual Studio 2022 works with the EWDK that contain VS17.X build tools. For a list of Visual Studio 2022 version numbers, see Visual Studio 2022 Releases.


Driver samples for Windows

To download the driver samples, do one of the following:

  • Go to the driver samples page on GitHub, click Clone or download, and then click Download ZIP.
  • Download the GitHub Extension for Visual Studio, and then connect to the GitHub repositories.
  • Browse the driver samples on the Microsoft Samples portal.
  • Download the WDK Insider Preview
  • Download previous versions of the WDK
  • Download the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK)
  • Download the Windows HLK
  • Download the Windows Debugging Tools (WinDbg)
  • Download Windows Symbol Packages

See also

  • Windows 11 hardware requirements
Download the Windows Driver Kit (WDK) - Windows drivers (2024)

FAQs

How do I install Wdk? ›

Set up: Windows Driver Kit (WDK) for Visual Studio 2019 - YouTube

Know More ›
Where is the WDK installed? ›

The WDK Visual Studio extension is included in the default WDK installation. If you can't find driver project templates in Visual Studio, the WDK Visual Studio extension didn't install properly. To resolve this, run the WDK. vsix file from this location: C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Vsix\VS2022\10.0.

Read On ›
How do I download PoolMon? ›

  1. Prepare to run PoolMon: Poolmon.exe is contained in the Microsoft Windows Driver Kit (WDK). You can download it from the Microsoft WDK site. ...
  2. Run PoolMon. The following example outlines a procedure for using PoolMon to detect a memory leak: Press Windows+R, type cmd , and press Enter.
Nov 19, 2021

Tell Me More ›
What is the full form of Wdk? ›

The Windows Driver Kit (WDK) is a software toolset from Microsoft that enables the development of device drivers for the Microsoft Windows platform.

See Details ›
What is the best driver installer? ›

List of Top Driver Updater Tools
  • Driver Easy.
  • TweakBit Driver Updater.
  • DeviceDoctor.
  • DriverPack Solution.
  • Snappy Driver Installer.
  • Driver Genius.
  • Driver Talent.
  • DriverMax.
May 4, 2022

Explore More ›
How do I install WDTF? ›

Installing WDTF runtime library
  1. Install Visual Studio and then install the WDK.
  2. Configure a remote computer for testing and deployment. In Visual Studio, on the Driver menu, point to Test and then select Configure computers....
  3. When you configure the test computer, the Windows Driver Test Framework runtime is installed.
Dec 14, 2021

Discover More Details ›
How do I update the drivers on my laptop? ›

Click the Start button on the Windows taskbar. Click the Settings icon (it's a small gear) Select Updates & Security then click Check for updates.

Show Me More ›
What is Windows SDK used for? ›

The Windows SDK (10.0. 22621) for Windows 11, version 22H2 provides the latest headers, libraries, metadata, and tools for building Windows applications. Use this SDK to build Universal Windows Platform (UWP) and Win32 applications for Windows 11, version 22H2 and previous Windows releases.

Get More Info ›
Where is the PoolMon EXE? ›

Poolmon.exe is available in the Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit and in the \Support\Tools folder of Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 CD-ROMs.

Discover More ›
What is a PoolMon EXE? ›

PoolMon (poolmon.exe), the Memory Pool Monitor, displays data that the operating system collects about memory allocations from the system paged and nonpaged kernel pools, and the memory pools used for Terminal Services sessions. The data is grouped by pool allocation tag.

Continue Reading ›

How do I enable PoolMon? ›

To find a memory leak with the PoolMon utility, follow this procedure:
  1. Start PoolMon.
  2. If you have determined that the leak is occurring in non-paged pool, press P once; if you have determined that it is occurring in paged pool, press P twice. ...
  3. Press B to sort the display by maximum byte use.
  4. Start your test.
Dec 14, 2021

Discover More ›
What does YDK mean? ›

Summary of Key Points
YDK
Definition:You Don't Know
Type:Abbreviation
Guessability:2: Quite easy to guess
Typical Users:Adults and Teenagers

Discover More Details ›
What is WYD mean? ›

Wyd is a texting and internet acronym that stands for What (are) you doing? or What (would) you do?

View More ›
What does ADK mean in text? ›

ADK
AcronymDefinition
ADKA Different Kind
ADKApplication Desktop
ADKAdapter Development Kit
ADKApplication Developer'S Kit
20 more rows

View More ›
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