Windows 7 Inbox Drivers

Inbox display drivers are included on the Windows distribution media and are automatically installed as part of Windows 7.

Inbox drivers are generic and include no control panel applications, help files, OpenGL installable client drivers (ICDs), or other additional software. However, they offer full Windows 7 functionality right out of the box. Both WDDM v1.1 and WDDM v1 drivers can be distributed inbox.

Microsoft's goal in Windows 7 is to enable smooth upgrades for the most popular legacy devices and provide the best support for new features for recently released devices. The table on the right lists the inbox drivers that will be made available in Windows 7.

Microsoft will be providing inbox drivers for the most common graphics cards and mobile GPUs in the market. Drivers for other devices can be obtained from their manufacturers or via Windows Update.

Unified WDDM Driver Packages

Most graphics IHVs (Independent Hardware Vendors) offer unified driver packages for their graphics cards. A unified driver package is one common driver that works across multiple generations of hardware. This allows IHVs to offer the benefits of driver improvements and bug fixes for all variations of the hardware they ship and support.

To reduce the complexity of testing, the Windows 7 WDDM v1.1 driver interfaces are backwards compatible with Windows Vista. Therefore, IHVs that implement Windows 7 WDDM v1.1 driver features can integrate them into common driver source code and build a single driver that runs on both Windows 7 and Windows Vista.

When installed on Windows Vista, such a driver simply acts as a WDDM v1 driver. When the same driver is installed on Windows 7, it can use the new WDDM v1.1 functionality. As a result, IHVs are not required to build and maintain multiple source code branches for Windows releases that support the WDDM driver model. OEMs that plan to both provide new drivers for Windows 7 and update existing ones for Windows Vista also benefit from this approach.

Although the driver packages are unified, IHVs and OEMs must still pass the Windows Logo Program (WLP) testing for each operating system version. A Windows Vista WDDM driver must run the test suite and produce logs on Windows Vista, and a Windows 7 WDDM v1.1 driver must run the required test suite and produce logs on Windows 7.

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