Display drivers that run on Windows Vista can be written according to either the Windows Vista display driver model or the Windows 2000 Display Driver Model. Display drivers written according to the Windows Vista display driver model run only on Windows Vista, while display drivers written according to the Windows 2000 display driver model run on Windows 2000 and later, which includes Windows Vista.

The following sections describe the display driver model for Windows Vista.

Note  The Windows Vista display driver model does not use services of the Graphics Device Interface (GDI) engine; therefore, the GDI section is not relevant to writing display drivers for the Windows Vista display driver model.