poka.sh

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INF

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Windows Setup Information.

At a glance
Original creator Microsoft
Purpose A Windows setup information file: the text file in a driver package that tells Windows how to install the driver on a device.
Extensions .inf
Poka parser poka-inf
Viewer poka-tree-viewer
Depth tier Parser with a shared viewer (see Depth tiers)
Breadth tier B2 Broad (see Breadth tiers)

How much Poka reads

B2 Broad. The common content of the current and the common older versions is decoded. Some named features or versions are not, and are listed.

Confidence: medium (the reviewer read the code). Basis: Reviewed 2026-10-16: parsers/poka-inf/src/lib.rs, its unit tests and tests/samples.rs. The corpus has one real file (input.inf from Wine, plus a synthetic fixture). Poka reads INI-shaped syntax: sections, repeated keys, comments, backslash continuation, UTF-16LE or single-byte text, and %TOKEN% substitution from the plain [Strings] section into keys and values. It does not interpret INF directives. Covers Windows INF files in general.

What Poka does not read

  • Locale-specific string sections ([Strings.0409] and similar) are not used for resolution
  • Directive meaning is not decoded: CopyFiles, AddReg, AddService, DestinationDirs, DIRID numbers, SourceDisks entries and architecture-decorated sections are shown as raw text, not as file or registry lists
  • Comma-separated values are not split into fields
  • Include and Needs references are not followed
  • UTF-16BE and UTF-8 with BOM are not recognised; single-byte text is assumed to be Windows-1250
  • Capped at 6,000 nodes

Background

Microsoft's documentation describes an INF file as the text file in a driver package with everything the installation components need. It is INI-shaped, but with %TOKEN% values resolved from the [Strings] section, line continuation with a trailing backslash, and other rules a plain INI reader gets wrong. Poka shows the sections and their entries with %TOKEN% references resolved on both sides of the equals sign, so a device name written as %DeviceDesc%=Install, … reads as text as well as the manufacturer and the disk label. Localised [Strings.LLLL] sections are ignored.

Versions

Version Identifier Poka Note
Windows INF [Version] Signature=… Read

Libraries

Libraries Poka uses or has assessed for this format, with the status, licence and language the registry records.

Sources