Why doesn't the ReactOS vga.sys work in Win 2000?

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Gary
Posts: 14
Joined: Fri Jan 24, 2020 8:46 pm

Why doesn't the ReactOS vga.sys work in Win 2000?

Post by Gary »

Hello,
I just tested the vga.sys from ReactOS under Windows 2000 and noticed that the driver is not even loaded (error code 31 = driver can't be loaded).

Does someone know why Windows is rejecting the loading procedure?

Thank you.
hbelusca
Developer
Posts: 1204
Joined: Sat Dec 26, 2009 10:36 pm
Location: Zagreb, Croatia

Re: Why doesn't the ReactOS vga.sys work in Win 2000?

Post by hbelusca »

Time for you to use Windbg on windows 2000 to debug the issue!
ThFabba
Developer
Posts: 293
Joined: Sun Jul 11, 2010 11:39 am

Re: Why doesn't the ReactOS vga.sys work in Win 2000?

Post by ThFabba »

First of all, our driver is not designed for Windows 2000. If it also doesn't work on Server 2003, then it's worth investigating.
Gary
Posts: 14
Joined: Fri Jan 24, 2020 8:46 pm

Re: Why doesn't the ReactOS vga.sys work in Win 2000?

Post by Gary »

Ok, I figured it out. The ReactOS vga.sys stores the value 0x54 as the size of the VIDEO_HW_INITIALIZATION data structure. So when calling Videoprt.sys/VideoPortInitialize the function rejects the data structure and returns an error code. The DriverEntry function of vga.sys returns this error code and then Windows 2000 notices that the driver has a problem and unloads it.

The correct value for the size in Windows 2000 is 0x50 or lower. In Windows XP there is a bigger structure which is 0x54 bytes but the last 4 bytes are unused. Windows XP probably accepts 0x50 and 0x54 and probably also the size from Windows NT.
R3n
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Feb 07, 2021 11:46 am

Re: Why doesn't the ReactOS vga.sys work in Win 2000?

Post by R3n »

Gary wrote: Sun Apr 12, 2020 5:10 pm Ok, I figured it out. The ReactOS vga.sys stores the value 0x54 as the size of the VIDEO_HW_INITIALIZATION data structure. So when calling Videoprt.sys/VideoPortInitialize the function rejects the data structure and returns an error code. The DriverEntry function of vga.sys returns this error code and then Windows 2000 notices that the driver has a problem and unloads it.

The correct value for the size in Windows 2000 is 0x50 or lower. In Windows XP there is a bigger structure which is 0x54 bytes but the last 4 bytes are unused. Windows XP probably accepts 0x50 and 0x54 and probably also the size from Windows NT.
Did you get it working? I'm having a issue with the 2000 installer, and the only thing that could cause the issues would be vga.sys or some related file.
Gary
Posts: 14
Joined: Fri Jan 24, 2020 8:46 pm

Re: Why doesn't the ReactOS vga.sys work in Win 2000?

Post by Gary »

Hello R3n,
I responded to your email because I am no longer active in this forum.
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