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The WDK is used to develop, test, and deploy Windows drivers. The latest public version of WDK is available below. Join the Windows Insider Program to get WDK Insider Preview builds.
The following editions of Visual Studio 2017 support driver development:
When you install Visual Studio, select the Desktop development with C++ workload. The Windows 10 Software Development Kit (SDK) is automatically included, and is displayed in the right-hand Summary pane.
For ARM/ARM64 driver development, choose Individual components and under Compilers, build tools, and runtimes select Visual C++ compilers and libraries for ARM/ARM64.
New for this release: The WDK installation will by default install the WDK Visual Studio extension. This must be done in order for WDK VS integration to work.
The EWDK is a standalone self-contained command-line environment for building drivers. It includes the Visual Studio Build Tools, the SDK, and the WDK. There are two versions available:
To get started, mount the ISO and run LaunchBuildEnv.
You can use the WDK to develop drivers for these operating systems:
To get universal Windows driver samples, do one of the following:
Important: WDK for Windows 10, version 1703, is not compatible with Visual Studio 2017. Use Visual Studio 2015 for driver development with this version of the WDK. All four editions of Visual Studio 2015 support driver development.
Get Visual Studio Express for Desktop Get Visual Studio Community 2015 Get Visual Studio Professional 2015 Get Visual Studio Enterprise 2015When you install Visual Studio, select the Typical for Windows 10 Developers option.
Important: If you install the WDK, you will not be able to develop Modern Applications.
Important: If you have installed WDK for Windows 10, version 1607, some WDK files get removed when installing the WDK for Windows 10, version 1703, on top of the WDK for Windows 10, version 1607. To restore these files:
You can also install the EWDK to build drivers and basic Win32 test applications in a command-line build environment. This environment doesn't include all the features available in Visual Studio, such as the integrated development environment (IDE), so you'll need to use a code editor of your choice.
Download WDK 8.1 Update, which has tools to build, test, debug, and deploy drivers for Windows 8.1 Update, Windows 8.1, Windows 8, and Windows 7. When you have the WDK, we recommend that you install the WDK 8.1 Update Test Pack. It has the tests for device fundamentals, graphics, imaging, mobile broadband (CDMA, GSM, WLAN), sensors, and other utilities.
Important: Before installing WDK 8.1 Update, you need to install Visual Studio 2013.
We provide Windows Driver Kit (WDK) 8 to give you time to migrate to WDK 8.1 Update and Visual Studio 2013. Microsoft does not support WDK 8 and will make no further updates to this kit. We recommend that you use the latest versions of the WDK and Visual Studio to build drivers for Windows.
Important: You must install Visual Studio Professional 2012 or Visual Studio Ultimate before you install WDK 8.
Debugging Tools for Windows (WinDbg) are included in the WDK 8.1 Update, but you can also install them as a standalone component from the Windows 8.1 SDK. In the installation wizard, select Debugging Tools for Windows, and clear all other components.
With the Windows Remote Debugging client, you can work remotely with developers from Microsoft, over the internet, to debug kernel-mode failures using the kernel debugger. Learn more and prepare for remote debugging.
Developing a driver for Windows XP or Windows Server 2003? WDK 7.1.0 has the tools, code samples, docs, compilers, headers, and libraries that you can use to create drivers for these operating systems.
If you're debugging Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, or Windows Server 2008 (or using one of these operating systems to run Debugging Tools for Windows), you need to use the Windows 7 release of the debugging tools. It's included in the SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4.0. To install the Debugging Tools for Windows as a standalone component, in the SDK installation wizard, select Debugging Tools for Windows, and clear all other components.
Important: Newer versions of the Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable can cause issues when you install the SDK for Windows 7. For more information, see support for the Windows SDK.
