Device drivers are an important part of your computer system, because without these drivers none of the peripheral devices will work. Device drivers are software programs which act as a communications translator between the device and the operating system, or the device and the application that is trying to access it.

The traditional development of device drivers is made up of three distinct layers, the application, the operating system, and the operating system specific driver. All three of these layers are critical to the device driver functioning correctly.

Programs for applications use application programming interfaces, or API’s as they are commonly called, to communicate with the operating system. Each API is unique, and will only function with a specific operating system. An API intended for Linux would not work for MS-DOS, and the reverse is also true.

The operating system will determine which device driver layer definition is used, because this layer is defined in a different way for each operating system. The device drive layer is the layer that will implement all of the code which is specific to a device, plus implement the high level command features which are needed by the operating system to use a device, and each device has a class that will determine which device drivers are needed.

An API is used by the application program to talk to the operating system. The operating system will then translate the requests of the application program for a specific device to the device driver, so that the requests can be carried out.

Device drivers are an integral part of using devices with your PC, but there have been some issues with these software programs that can cause frustration, especially for computer owners who do not have vast knowledge and experience in PC programming. The specific issues will depend on the individual device driver for your device as well as the operating system your computer has.

One big issue with device driver development is the fact that a unified source code does not exist between drivers that are created for different operating systems, or between the drivers created for a range of hardware devices. This means that each operating system has a different source code, making it necessary to create the same device driver a number of different times, one for each operating system the device driver will be compatible with.

This is important so that devices can be used by more than one operating system simply by installing the correct device driver. Another issue during device driver development is the exhaustive and complicated verification and testing that must be done to guarantee the device driver is operating correctly.

This process takes an enormous amount of effort and time, and this causes hardware vendors to neglect older device drivers and concentrate on the device drivers for new hardware. If you own a device which is an older model, it may not be possible to use it with a new operating system, such as Windows Vista, because the device drivers can not be updated.