Reading USB descriptors w/o a driver installed?

Using the UCView tool in the WinDDK, I can read the USB descriptors of
devices that are attached even if I do not have a driver installed for them
(show up in Device Manager with yellow exclamation mark).

What is the standard way of doing this programatically? I've only ever
gotten descriptors using calls into the driver (WinUSB or otherwise). Is it
accessible through SetupAPI somehow?

I am specifically interested in getting string descriptors, although I
assume if I can get the device descriptor, I'll be able to get any available
descriptors.

Thanks,

--
Ryan

ryan01701 wrote:

> Using the UCView tool in the WinDDK, I can read the USB descriptors of
> devices that are attached even if I do not have a driver installed for them
> (show up in Device Manager with yellow exclamation mark).
>
> What is the standard way of doing this programatically? I've only ever
> gotten descriptors using calls into the driver (WinUSB or otherwise). Is it
> accessible through SetupAPI somehow?

IOCTL_USB_GET_DESCRIPTOR_FROM_NODE_CONNECTION is what you want. Sample
code is either UsbView (as Don Burn already pointed out), or this
console tool from Intel:
http://www.intel.com/intelpress/usb/examples/DUSBVC.PDF

"Wilhelm Noeker" wrote:
> IOCTL_USB_GET_DESCRIPTOR_FROM_NODE_CONNECTION is what you want. Sample
> code is either UsbView (as Don Burn already pointed out), or this
> console tool from Intel:
> http://www.intel.com/intelpress/usb/examples/DUSBVC.PDF

This looks like it will work. I assume that I will have to walk the USB
device tree to find the hub to which the device is attached and its port
index in order to properly use this ioctl. That's what I see going on in the
USBView source code.

Thanks,

--
Ryan