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The Microsoft® Window® 2000 operating system includes enhancements to simplify device driver development and device management. These enhancements include support for low-level instrumentation, power management, and Plug and Play (the subject of this white paper).

Plug and Play is a combination of hardware and software support that enables a computer system to recognize and adapt to hardware configuration changes with little or no user intervention. With Plug and Play, a user can add or remove devices dynamically, without awkward and confusing manual configuration and without any intricate knowledge of computer hardware. For example, a user can dock a portable computer and use the docking station’s Ethernet card to connect to the network without changing the configuration. Later, the user can undock that same computer and use a modem to connect to the network—again without making any manual configuration changes.

Plug and Play allows a user to change a computer’s configuration with the assurance that all devices will work together and that the machine will boot correctly

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Support for Plug and Play was first provided in the Microsoft Windows® 95 operating system; however, since that time Plug and Play has evolved dramatically. This evolution is largely a result of the OnNow design initiative, which seeks to define a comprehensive, system-wide approach to controlling system and device configuration and power management. One product of the OnNow initiative is the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) version 1.0 specification, which defines a new system board and BIOS interface that extends Plug and Play data to include power management and other new configuration capabilities, all under complete control of the operating system.

Unlike Plug and Play support in Microsoft Windows 95, the Windows 2000 Plug and Play implementation does not rely on an Advanced Power Management (APM) BIOS or a Plug and Play BIOS. These two BIOS implementations were designed for Windows 95 as early attempts to support Plug and Play and power management; they will be maintained in Windows 98 for backward compatibility only. ACPI provides these services for both Windows 98 and Windows 2000.

The primary design goal of Plug and Play is to further the industry initiative to simplify personal computers for end users. Beyond that, Windows 2000 Plug and Play is designed to:

∙Extend the existing Windows I/O infrastructure to support Plug and Play and power management, while also supporting industry hardware standards for Plug and Play.

∙Achieve common device driver interfaces that support Plug and Play and power management for many device classes under Windows 2000 and Windows 98.

In Windows 2000, Plug and Play support is optimized for laptop, workstation, and

Windows 2000 White Paper 1