An INF file (or Setup Information file) is a plain text file used by Microsoft Windows for installation of software and drivers. INF files are most commonly used for installing device drivers for hardware components. Windows includes IExpress.exe for the creation of INF-based installations. INF files are part of the Windows Setup API.

[edit] Structure of an INF file

The structure of an INF file is very similar to that of an INI file; it contains various sections that specify the files to be copied, changes to the registry etc. All INF files contain a [version] section with a Signature value specifying the version of Windows that the INF file is meant for. The signature is commonly $CHICAGO$ (for Windows 9x) or $WINDOWS NT$ (for Windows NT/2K/XP) Most of the remaining sections are user-defined and contain information specific to the component being installed. An example of a INF file might have something like this:

 [autorun] open=intro.exe 

What this would do is open the intro.exe file automatically whenever the media containing the file (in its root directory) is connected to the a computer. This can be dangerous, as there is no way to tell whether such a file exists before inserting the media. Since Windows Vista, however, this feature has been replaced with a menu forcing the user to choose which action to take.

INF Files can be dangerous on Windows XP sometimes as they are successful to make even the viruses autorun without prompting!

Otherwise they are helpful;

 [autorun] open=intro.exe icon=cd.ico 

'icon=*.ico' command replaces any old/default drive icon with the specified one. [autorun] can be replaced by [AutoRun] or [Autorun].

[edit] External links

• INF Files at MSDN
• Internet Component Download with INF Files at MSDN
• Standard Modem Command Sets and INFs.

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