A Steam Deck client streaming to a Windows host had a stuck stick and a stuck d-pad. The virtual pad was enumerating with the DualSense VID/PID **and the DualSense report descriptor**, so Windows parsed the 64-byte Deck frame as DualSense report 0x01: LX = report[1] = 0x00 (stick hard left), LY = report[2] = 0x09 (hard up), and a d-pad hat of 0 — which is UP, held forever. The driver picked its identity from `device_type` in the sealed section, but hidclass asks for the descriptors and attributes while it STARTS the device, and the section can only be delivered over the HID device interface — which does not exist until those queries are answered. The channel was structurally unavailable at the only moment it was needed, so `device_type()`'s bounded wait always timed out and every identity fell back to DualSense. Not a race: DualShock 4 and the Edge enumerated as DualSenses too (verified on .173 — both report 054C:0CE6 with a 64-byte DualSense input report, while their on-demand strings read correctly). The devnode's own hardware ids carry the identity and are readable at EvtDeviceAdd, before anything is asked, so resolve it there. The section stays authoritative once attached; the old wait survives only for a devnode whose ids match nothing. `hwid_devtype_table_matches_the_driver` pins the host's hwid → device_type mapping against the driver's table, including the ordering trap that `pf_dualsense` is a prefix of `pf_dualsenseedge`.
pf-gamepad — the virtual-gamepad UMDF2 HID minidriver
Renamed from pf-dualsense (2026-07-28). One driver has always served four identities — DualSense, DualShock 4, DualSense Edge and Steam Deck — so the old name read as if the other three lived somewhere else. Only the PACKAGE identity moved (crate, INF, CAT, DLL, UMDF service); the four hardware ids (
pf_dualsense,pf_dualshock4,pf_dualsenseedge,pf_steamdeck) are deliberately unchanged — they bind every devnode the host creates and every installed system.driver install --gamepadretires the pre-rename store package so the two can't both claim them.
A self-authored Rust UMDF2 HID minidriver that presents a virtual Sony DualSense
(VID 054C / PID 0CE6) to Windows, so games drive adaptive triggers / lightbar / rumble —
capabilities ViGEm structurally cannot deliver. It's how the punktfunk Windows host gives a client's
DualSense a near-native feel with no external gamepad dependencies (no ViGEmBus).
Shipping: the driver is one member of the in-tree driver workspace
(packaging/windows/drivers/), built from source in CI, and bundled +
pnputil-installed by the Windows host installer. The host feeds it over a shared
memory channel from crates/punktfunk-host/src/inject/windows/dualsense_windows.rs. The same UMDF driver also
serves the DualShock 4 identity per a device_type byte the host stamps.
This README captures the driver-authoring lore — the bugs and the signing recipe that make a self-signed UMDF HID driver actually load. The authoritative build/sign/package flow (CI + Inno Setup) lives in the Windows host packaging README.
Build workspace
This crate builds as a member of the packaging/windows/drivers/ workspace, which
uses the published crates.io wdk/wdk-sys/wdk-build (0.4/0.5) — not the old dev-box
windows-drivers-rs path-deps. It's a separate cargo workspace from the main tree because driver
crates are cdylibs built with the WDK toolchain on Windows only; it path-deps the shared ABI crate
crates/pf-driver-proto.
Build / sign / install recipe (the one that actually loads)
Prereqs on the Windows box: WDK 26100, LLVM (the current default; bindgen 0.72 builds on clang
22), Rust MSVC. Built as a member of the packaging/windows/drivers/ workspace (plain cargo build, no
cargo-make). A self-signed CodeSigning cert in CurrentUser\My + LocalMachine\Root +
TrustedPublisher.
Every build needs:
$env:LIBCLANG_PATH = 'C:\Program Files\LLVM\bin'
$env:Version_Number = '10.0.26100.0' # else wdk-build picks 10.0.28000.0 (no km/crt) and bindgen fails
The shipping flow is build-gamepad-drivers.ps1 (one level up): workspace cargo build --release
plus the sign steps below, staged for the installer. The original manual dev-box recipe, kept as
lore (paths reflect that era's cargo-make layout):
cargo make # -> target\debug\pf_gamepad_package\ (.inf/.cat/.dll)
# *** CRITICAL: clear the PE FORCE_INTEGRITY bit ***
# windows-drivers-rs links the DLL with /INTEGRITYCHECK, which forces a CI-trusted page-hash
# signature a self-signed cert cannot satisfy (CodeIntegrity 3004 "hash not found" /
# 3089 VerificationError 7). SudoVDA.dll (third-party VDD prior art, not used by punktfunk) has
# this bit OFF. Clear bit 0x80 at PE-header offset +0x5e:
$f = 'target\debug\pf_gamepad_package\pf_gamepad.dll'
$b = [IO.File]::ReadAllBytes($f); $pe = [BitConverter]::ToInt32($b,0x3c); $off = $pe + 0x5e
$dc = [BitConverter]::ToUInt16($b,$off); $bb = [BitConverter]::GetBytes([uint16]($dc -band 0xFF7F))
$b[$off]=$bb[0]; $b[$off+1]=$bb[1]; [IO.File]::WriteAllBytes($f,$b)
signtool sign /fd SHA256 /sha1 <cert-thumbprint> $f
Remove-Item target\debug\pf_gamepad_package\pf_gamepad.cat
Inf2Cat /driver:target\debug\pf_gamepad_package /os:10_x64
signtool sign /fd SHA256 /sha1 <cert-thumbprint> target\debug\pf_gamepad_package\pf_gamepad.cat
pnputil /add-driver target\debug\pf_gamepad_package\pf_gamepad.inf /install
devgen /add /hardwareid "root\pf_dualsense" # creates the (transient, SWD) device node
devgen (under Windows Kits\10\Tools\<ver>\x64\) is only for manual testing — the shipping
install is punktfunk-host.exe driver install --gamepad, and the host SwDeviceCreate's the device
per session (no persistent devnode). SWD devgen devices clear on reboot. TODO: drop the post-build
PE patch by stopping wdk-build emitting /INTEGRITYCHECK.
The three bugs that made it work (porting a WDK C sample to Rust)
WDF_*_CONFIG_INIT / WDF_OBJECT_ATTRIBUTES_INIT macros set non-zero defaults — mem::zeroed()
silently breaks them:
- FORCE_INTEGRITY (above) — the load wall.
- Timer
ExecutionLevel— zeroed = Invalid →WdfTimerCreate0xC0200209. SetExecutionLevel/SynchronizationScope = InheritFromParent+AutomaticSerialization = TRUE(the working vhidmini2 shape). - Queue
Settings.Parallel.NumberOfPresentedRequests— zeroed = 0 → a parallel queue presents zero requests →EvtIoDeviceControlnever fires → no HID handshake → ~5 s timeout →CM_PROB_FAILED_START. Set tou32::MAX.
Notes
- Multi-pad works via
UmdfHostProcessSharing=ProcessSharingDisabled— each pad gets its own WUDFHost (so the per-instance statics don't collide), and the driver reads its pad index from the device Location (WdfDeviceAllocAndQueryProperty) to poll its own*-boot-<index>bootstrap mailbox (the DATA section itself is unnamed — the sealed pad channel, punktfunk-planning:gamepad-channel-sealing.md— and itspad_indexis validated against this index on attach). - Port of the WDK
vhidmini2UMDF2 sample; the DualSense identity + 273-byte descriptor + feature blobs0x05/0x09/0x20come fromcrates/punktfunk-host/src/inject/proto/dualsense_proto.rs.