Watchdog Timer Driver

Windows® Powered server appliance OEMs have the option to include a watchdog timer device to shut down or restart the operating system (OS) when it stops responding. This timer requires a device driver that provides a standard interface to the rest of the reliability framework component of the Microsoft® Server Appliance Kit. The following documentation describes the minimal implementation for this driver.

This documentation describes how to develop a driver for a watchdog timer on a server appliance. It focuses primarily on the low-level implementation details for this driver. It does not discuss general driver development issues or kernel-mode programming. These topics are discussed in the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Driver Development Kit (DDK).