Method and computer program product for interconnecting software drivers in kernel mode

In a system having one or more kernel drivers wherein each kernel mode driver has a separate device object associated with each function the kernel mode driver is capable of performing and each said device object is heirarchically related to its corresponding kernel mode driver, a method of interconnecting a first kernel mode device object and a second kernel mode device object to allow said device objects to communicate with each other using a kernel mode connection in a standardized and extensible manner, the method comprising:

• querying, by a third party component, said first and second device objects to determine what property sets the device objects support;
• supplying, to said third party component by said first and second device objects in response to a query, the type of connections each device objects supports;
• determining, by said third party component based on the supplied connection information, how to make a connection between said first and second device objects;
• providing, by said third party component, a data format and a connection format to said first device object;
• creating, by said first device object and in response to said third party component, an instance of said connection format to said first device object and a handle to the instantiated connection;
• returning, by said first device object, said handle to said third party component;
• and
• providing, by said third party component, said handle to said second device object, wherein the data is consecutively processed by said device objects in kernel mode without resort to a user mode agent to directly control or coordinate the intermediate transfer of data from one kernel mode device object to the next kernel mode device object.

A kernel mode media rendering system comprising:

• a media source;
• a plurality of kernel mode drivers for processing media samples received from the media source, each kernel mode driver having a separate device object associated with each function the kernel mode driver is capable of performing and each said device object being heirarchically related to its corresponding kernel mode driver;
• an originating device object reading media samples of a media stream from the media source;
• a terminating device object rendering said media stream;
• and
• each device object having connection pin instances for passing media samples between the device objects;
• and
• kernel mode component interconnections between the device objects created using the connection pin instances to route the data samples from the originating device object to the terminating device object, wherein the data is consecutively processed by said components in kernel mode without resort to a user mode agent to directly control or coordinate the intermediate transfer of data from one kernel mode component to the next kernel mode component.

A method for interconnecting software drivers to allow efficient kernel mode processing of data comprising the steps of:

• opening one or more kernel mode drivers, each of the kernel mode drivers having a separate device object associated with each function the kernel mode driver is capable of performing and each said device object being heirarchically related to its corresponding kernel mode driver and wherein each device object has a separate file object associated with each instance of said device object and each file object is hierarchically related to its corresponding device object;
• forming one or more connection pin instances for connecting the file objects, each connection pin instance hierarchically related to one of said one or more file objects and used for data transmission between said one or more file objects;
• and
• interconnecting said one or more connection pin instances so as to provide a continuous data flow path through said one or more file objects operating in kernel mode, wherein the data is consecutively processed by said file objects in kernel mode without resort to a user mode agent to directly control or coordinate the intermediate transfer of data from one kernel mode file object to the next kernel mode file object.