After installing the WDK, ensure that your Visual Studio project is set up to build Windows drivers. This involves:

(required for all target architectures like x64 and ARM64). Step 2: Install the Windows SDK

If the extension fails to install automatically, the .vsix file can usually be found in the installation directory ( C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Vsix\VS2022\10.0.<build>.0 ) and installed manually by double-clicking the file.

The installation must be done in a specific sequence to ensure all libraries and project templates are correctly integrated. The WDK requires Visual Studio for its build environment. Launch the Visual Studio Installer and select Modify . Check the "Desktop development with C++" workload. Go to the Individual Components tab and manually add:

Upon launching the standalone installer (or finalizing the VS Installer method), the setup wizard will prompt for the installation location. It is standard practice to accept the default path, typically C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10 .