Software Requirements

Plug & play support for parallel port devices will require that the device return a device ID string in nibble mode, as defined by the IEEE 1284 specification.

The details of how the device ID should be returned are described below, minimal Plug & Play support is available to devices returning the required device ID fields as documented by the IEEE 1284 specification (described below), however Microsoft has defined 3 additional keywords which provide more optimal Plug & Play support. Vendors are strongly encouraged to support these 3 additional fields.

Note that Plug & Play support for devices only reporting the 3 required key values as described in IEEE 1284 is possible, supporting the 3 additional key values will provide the following:

· Allows devices to specify their class and activate class-specific installation procedures

· Allows the device itself to return a "user-friendly" name describing the device, which will be used during installation UI if no entry is found for the device in an INF file..

· Allows the device to report other devices that it is compatible with. Devices which only support the minimal 1284 device ID key values will not be able to have a compatible driver selected and installed automatically.