This describes auxiliary functions exported by the network control panel application (NCPA). It assumes the reader is familiar with the nature and syntax of the installation script language, described in the Programmer's Guide.
The system-supplied setup.exe is an interpreter of the INF language. As such, setup.exe requires all information passing between it and its extension DLLs to be in text form. The NCPA has a set of auxiliary functions that provide such translation. These functions are used to provide access to other functions too complex to write in the INF language.
Some NCPA-provided functions are used in NIC detection to encapsulate the functionality. The functions are divided into two classes: those that are essentially wrappers, and those that have algorithms to utilize the functions described here.
One of the primary purposes of these auxiliary functions is to handle dynamically installed NIC-detection DLLs. Addition of new DLL names is done automatically by INF routines in the utility.inf file.
Msncdet.dll should always appear first in such a list. All the DLLs in this list are automatically loaded and queried about available network interface cards during system installation.