Method and apparatus for dynamically loading a driver routine in a computer memory

摘要

A device driver in a computer system is dynamically loaded from a storage device to the computer system memory during run time to reduce the amount of memory required to store the device driver. During an initialization period, an initial copy of the device driver is loaded into the computer system memory from the storage device. After the initialization period, the device driver specifies, to the operating system, a minimum resident subset of the device driver of the initial copy which is to be retained in the computer system memory, thereby reducing the amount of computer system memory required to store the device driver. During run time of the device driver, a subsequent copy of the device driver is loaded from the storage device into the computer system memory. The computer system executes the device driver by using both the minimum resident subset of the device driver of the initial copy and a dynamically loaded subset of the device driver of the subsequent copy. The computer system memory for storing the dynamically loaded subset of the device driver of the subsequent copy is reallocated after run time.