摘要 |
The present invention is directed to a system and method of managing logical device state information within an information handling system. Logical device state information is stored only once, by the information handling system. Device drivers do not need to maintain and store redundant copies of logical device state information. A device driver indicates whether or not it needs to have logical device state information passed to it. Before calling a device driver to handle a device function, the information handling system checks to determine whether or not the device driver has indicated that it needs logical device state information passed to it. If so, the information handling system passes the appropriate logical device state information to the device driver. For device functions which are not hooked by the device driver, the information handling system maintains the device state. System efficiency is increased, as each device driver may register for the subset of functions it can most efficiently handle, without hooking operating system functions or handling all state specific functions associated with a particular device function. In addition, device driver development may proceed in an incremental fashion, and device driver developers do not have to learn details of every operating system on which a device may be installed.
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