Patent ID: 8413171

Claim:
A method to facilitate device driver migration between operating systems, comprising: implementing, by a computing device, a middleware domain between device drivers and a particular operating system domain and that includes a plug-and-play state machine, a power state machine, and a power policy state machine, the middleware domain configured to: interface directly with the particular operating system domain such that the device drivers interact with the particular operating system via the middleware domain; perform processing of device configuration events through the plug-and-play state machine and processing of device power events through the power state machine in the middleware domain to enable separation of the handling of the device configuration and power events from device-specific functionality implemented by the device drivers; offload power management from the device drivers utilizing the power policy state machine to manage system power events on behalf of the device drivers; handle input/output request packets (IRPs) on behalf of the device drivers; and enable creation of operating system independent device drivers that provide the device-specific functionality without direct handling of said device configuration and power events by the device drivers; and processing, by the computing device, one or more of the device configuration and power events through the middleware domain on behalf of the device drivers.