Driver Verifier is a tool included in
Microsoft Windows that replaces the default operating system
subroutines with ones that are specifically developed to catch
device driver bugs.
Once enabled, it monitors and stresses drivers to detect illegal
function calls or actions that may be causing system corruption. It acts within the
kernel mode
In computer science, hierarchical protection domains, often called protection rings, are mechanisms to protect data and functionality from faults (by improving fault tolerance) and malicious behavior (by providing computer security).
Compute ...
and can target specific device drivers for continual checking or make driver verifier functionality
multithreaded, so that several device drivers can be stressed at the same time.
It can simulate certain conditions such as low memory,
I/O verification,
pool
Pool may refer to:
Water pool
* Swimming pool, usually an artificial structure containing a large body of water intended for swimming
* Reflecting pool, a shallow pool designed to reflect a structure and its surroundings
* Tide pool, a rocky po ...
tracking,
IRQL checking,
deadlock
In concurrent computing, deadlock is any situation in which no member of some group of entities can proceed because each waits for another member, including itself, to take action, such as sending a message or, more commonly, releasing a loc ...
detection,
DMA checks,
IRP logging, etc.
The verifier works by forcing drivers to work with minimal resources, making potential errors that might happen only rarely in a working system manifest immediately. Typically fatal system errors are generated by the stressed drivers in the test environment, producing
core dump
In computing, a core dump, memory dump, crash dump, storage dump, system dump, or ABEND dump consists of the recorded state of the working memory of a computer program at a specific time, generally when the program has crashed or otherwise termina ...
s that can be analysed and
debugged immediately; without stressing,
intermittent fault An intermittent fault, often called simply an "intermittent", (or anecdotally "interfailing") is a malfunction of a device or system that occurs at intervals, usually irregular, in a device or system that functions normally at other times. Intermitt ...
s would occur in the field, without proper
troubleshooting
Troubleshooting is a form of problem solving, often applied to repair failed products or processes on a machine or a system. It is a logical, systematic search for the source of a problem in order to solve it, and make the product or process op ...
facilities or personnel.
Driver Verifier (Verifier.exe) was first introduced as a ''command-line'' utility in
Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999, and was officiall ...
;
in
Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
, it gained an easy-to-use graphical user interface, called ''Driver Verifier Manager'', that makes it possible to enable a standard or custom set of settings to select which drivers to test and verify. Each new Windows version has since introduced several new, more stringent checks for testing and verifying drivers and detecting new classes of driver defects.
Driver Verifier is not normally used on machines used in productive work. It can cause undetected and relatively harmless errors in drivers to manifest, especially ones not digitally signed by
Windows Hardware Quality Labs, causing
blue screen fatal system errors. It also causes resource-starved drivers to underperform and slow general operation if the constraints imposed by Verifier are not reversed after debugging. Microsoft recommends against verifying all drivers at the same time.
References
External links
Driver Verifier Homepage
{{Windows Components
Windows components
Device drivers