Microsoft Pushes Windows Driver Developers to Embrace Rust

Microsoft has embraced the memory-safe Rust language across its platforms, and now it’s pushing Windows driver developers to do the same.

“The Surface team has contributed further to the open-source windows-drivers-rs [repository] for driver development and shipped Surface drivers written in Rust,” Microsoft’s Melvin Wang writes. This not only enhances the posture of Surface devices—it also supports industry-wide and national initiatives to advance memory safety.”

The windows-drivers-rs repository that Wang references is open to developers outside the company so that they contribute, learn more about Rust, and implement their own Rust-based Windows drivers. It includes Rust crates (a sort of container for libraries and executables), documentation, samples, and how-to guides.

Microsoft wants developers to embrace Rust for driver development because it’s memory safe, offers type and concurrency safety, has compile-time abstractions and guarantees, and can interoperate with existing C/C++ driver code through its Foreign Function Interface (FFI) functionality.

Looking ahead, Microsoft says that it will only expand its use of Rust, with support for more driver types, advanced feature support to achieve parity with the existing Windows Driver Kit (WDK), more safe, open-source abstractions, and partnerships across the company to accelerate adoption and improve tooling, documentation, and long-term maintainability.

“Together, these efforts aim to make Surface drivers even more reliable and secure,” Wang notes. “In the long term, this work won’t just improve our own devices, it will help strengthen the Windows ecosystem for all hardware partners.”

Microsoft will present at RustConf 2025 in September in Seattle as well, he adds.