Cross-Platform and WDM INF Files

You can create a single INF file that handles all the necessary details for the different Windows 2000 platforms and Windows 98.

The Version section Signature entry value is not used to determine the supported platforms. Instead, each platform has a different install section indicating what to do for that platform. The sections have a common base name, with additional "decoration" characters at the end of the section name to indicate the platform. If there are no section platform variants, the basic section covers all W2000 platforms and W98.

If there are sections with different platform variants, the following rules apply. If there is no decoration, the section covers W98. .NTx86 covers the W2000 x86 platform. .NTalpha covers the W2000 alpha platform. . NT covers all W2000 platforms. You need to supply only the relevant sections.

This install section covers all platforms:

[Abc_Install]

…

These two sections handle Windows 98 and Windows 2000 x86 cases.

[Def_Install] ; Windows 98

…

[Def_Install .NTx86]

; Windows 2000 x86 platform

…

Note that the Windows 98 setup code needs commas for all the optional values, while Windows 2000 can survive without them. For example, in the SourceDisksFiles section, each entry is documented as

filename = diskid[,[subdir][,size]]

The filename entry has two optional values. If you are going to leave these out in an INF file, make sure that you put two commas in, so that it works in Windows 98.

filename=diskid,,