Aside from the mostly subtle UX and UI changes and improvements, every new version of Windows generally comes with several under-the-hood upgrades, and drivers are one of those. For example, with Windows 11 24H2, Microsoft introduced WDDM version 3.2 and with it came new features like improved AV1 support and better driver crash management.
Meanwhile, the company has also decided to drop some of the legacy features like Device Stage, something that was really big back in the day of Windows 7.
Although Microsoft has not yet disclosed the driver-related feature set that will land on Windows 11 25H2, the company this week announced an update to its driver testing specifically for the upcoming version. The company has updated the static analysis requirements for Windows driver certification for the "upcoming Windows release."
For those who may not be familiar, the Windows Hardware Certification Program (WHCP) has two basic verification tests for hardware drivers. Static tests the driver code, code path, and the like, without executing the driver, while Dynamic testing does the same, except when it is running on the system.
Microsoft says that Windows 11 25H2 third-party drivers must pass the Static Tools Logo Test that runs them through CodeQL before driver deployment in order to comply with WHCP. GitHub"s CodeQL is a static analysis engine used by developers to perform security inspections on code outside of a live environment.
The move is a part of Microsoft"s Secure Future Initiative, and increased usage of CodeQL was one of the things on its agenda list; thus, Microsoft now requires kernel-mode driver submissions to pass the Static Tools Logo Test before WHCP certification. In the blog post, Microsoft has listed the prerequisites that the test needs to meet:
Before running the updated static analysis tests, ensure the following components are in place:
You can find more information in the blog post here on Microsoft"s official Tech Community website.