inf2cat tool: Unable to create the catalog. Signability test failed.

[chai_optics]

Hi,

I am trying to control a USB device(DLPC900) from Labview. Since the supplier doesn't provide labview drivers, I am trying to configure the protocol myself using NI-VISA driver.

I have followed all the instructions in: https://knowledge.ni.com/KnowledgeArticleDetails?id=kA03q000000x1qzCAA&l=en-GB

 and generated inf file. 

However, I have an issue here: generating catalog file from inf file as its a requirement for Windows 8 and latest versions. The information is given here:https://knowledge.ni.com/KnowledgeArticleDetails?id=kA03q000000YH1PCAW&l=en-GB

I have searched microsoft and installed windows took kit which provides inf2cat tool and executed the command line: 

Inf2Cat /driver:"C:\Program Files\NI\LVAddons\nivisa\DMD" /os:"10_VB_X64"

It gives following error:

.......................
Signability test complete.

Errors: None

Warnings: None

Unable to create the catalog.

Signability test failed.

I am suspecting error may be the labview generated .inf file itself.

I would be grateful if anybody could help me on this.

Many thanks for your time

Regards

Chaitanya

[rolfk]

Actually do you have a valid certificate from a CA? Kernel drivers need to be signed since Windows 7 but initially it was enough to use self signed certificates. But since Windows 8 it needs to be a traceable certificate that can be traced back to one of the well known root certificates and since Windows 10 1507 or so you actually need to go through Windows Hardware Dev Center to let them counter sign your driver in order for Windows to accept it as a driver. And the procedure through the Windows Hardware Dev Center requires you to first test the driver through the test suite that is part of the Device Driver Development Kit and then sign the driver first with an EV certificate (more expensive than the standard certificate) and then send it together with the test reports to Windows Hardware Dev Center. They will verify all the submitted documentation and then counter sign the driver with their own certificate and only then can a device driver be loaded in Windows 10 or newer. And yes, change a bit in the driver anywhere and you can go through the whole procedure again.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/dotnet/articles/bb530195(v=msdn.10)

But I'm not developing a kernel device driver! Yes you are. The actual binary driver content is developed by NI for you as part of NI VISA but your inf file is an expansion on that driver and considered by Windows a driver in its own even if it makes use of an already registered binary driver. Otherwise anyone could develop some inf file to hijack an existing driver and use it without any signature that can be traced back to the culprit.

However since EV certificates cost quite some money (a yearly expense of several 100 dollars depending where you purchase them) it is generally not an option for most small businesses or individuals just for signing some random driver. As such the NI VISA USB Raw driver option definitely has been getting very little value nowadays. It was always a niche solution since it is far from the typical experience that you get when talking with a normal instrument over GPIB, RS-232 or TCP/IP but instead requires you to deal with binary data messages that need to be send to specific endpoints and received from them. Add interrupt and bulk transfer modes to the recipe and you are really more talking about embedded device programming than typical device communication. To make matters even worse you need a detailed technical document about the actual USB protocol to use, and most manufacturers would rather let their arms get chopped off than send out such a document.