Windows Portable Devices

Windows Portable Devices (WPD) enables computers to communicate with attached media and storage devices. WPD provides a flexible, robust way for computers to communicate with music players, storage devices, mobile phones, cameras, and many other types of connected devices. This system supersedes both Windows Media Device Manager and Windows Image Acquisition.

Applications that are built on WPD can explore a device, send and receive content, and even control the device, for example, take a picture or send a text message. The system is designed to be flexible so that many types of devices can be explored, and extensible so that driver developers can define custom properties and commands for custom devices.

You can write both Windows applications and Web applications with WPD. You use the WPD Application Programming Interface to create Windows applications. These applications can be written in C++, C# .Net, or Visual Basic .Net. You use the WPD Automation Object Model to write web applications. These applications are written in JScript and HTML.

The WPD Application Programming Interface is supported in Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP operating systems. The WPD Automation Object Model is only supported in Windows 7.

For more information about creating a WPD Windows application, refer to the WPD Application Programming Interface documentation and samples.

For more information about creating a WPD Automation application, refer to the WPD Automation Object Model documentation and samples.

WPD Application Programming Interface

WPD Automation Object Model