Can Windows drivers be written in Python?

Question

Can Windows drivers be written in Python?

Answer 1

A good way to gain insight why this is practically impossible is by reading Microsoft's advice on the use of C++ in drivers. As a derivative of C, the use of C++ appears to be straightforward. In practice, not so.

For instance, you must decide for every function (and really every assembly instruction) whether it's in pageable or non-pageable memory. This requires extensions to C, careful use of new C++ features, or in this case a special extension to the Python language and VM. In addition, your driver-compatible VM would also have to deal with the different IRQLs - there's a hierarchy of "levels" which restrict what you can and cannot do.

Answer 2

The definitive answer is not without embedding an interpreter in your otherwise C/assembly driver. Unless someone has a framework available, then the answer is no. Once you have the interpreter and bindings in place then the rest of the logic could be done in Python.

However, writing drivers is one of the things for which C is best suited. I imagine the resulting Python code would look a whole lot like C code and defeat the purpose of the interpreter overhead.

Answer 3

Python runs in a virtual machine, so no.

BUT:

You could write a compiler that translates Python code to machine language. Once you've done that, you can do it.