In a nutshell, I want to write my own device driver for windows, so that I can emulate a piece of hardware. I know very little about writing device drivers for windows, but I have a very firm understanding of the C and C++ languages, and I know enough x86(_64) assembly to get around.
I'm not really sure how one would go about even compiling a device driver, or what is required to create one. I'm certainly not against coding the entire thing in assembly if that needs to be done, but does it?
I'd like to do this using Windows tools obviously, I'm planning on trying to put it together using a windows GCC compiler, but I've got access to Visual Studio if that's needed. Can someone point me at resources that would be helpful, like reference manuals, tutorials, specs?
Oh: My target OS here is Windows 7, 64bit, which if I understand should be the same as Windows Vista 64bit, but correct my wrongness if it exists.
Thanks.