provided by: 
Originally published at Internet.comI've already borrowed so much information from CodeGuru that I've started getting frustrated that I haven't contributed anything myself to the site. Therefore, I respectfully offer this articles to my fellow programmers.
Some time ago, I had to write an NT 4.0 device driver. Since I was already used to the comfort of Visual Studio 6, it was hard to me to fall back to the free build and checked build environments, provided by the DDK. Especially I missed the browser possibilities that Visual Studio provides.
So, I started around digging into the DDK build environment to find out how it works, and if I could extend the environment to be usable within the Visual Studio. My primary goal was to keep the existing environment intact, and furthermore, I want to use this environment within VS 6.
The solution was simpler than I expected. I only need to set up some additional files.
_build.bat
. This *.bat is directly called by VS 6 and has the same command parameters as the DDK setenv.bat. This *.bat will clean up some existing files ( i.e. build.dat which I do wish to rebuild every time ), saves the actual directory ( see PrCHDIR ) and calls the original setenv.bat from the DDK. The _build.bat calls bscmake.exe at the end. This enables me to browse to the source code afterwards. The _build.bat is not project-depended.
PrCDIR.exe
On starting setenv.bat, one is move into the DDK root directory. And this not so good if you want to automate the environment. The small PrCHDIR program prints the actual directory and drive letter. The _build.bat catches it output and stores it into a @temp.bat. Once the setenv.bat has been called, the @temp.bat puts you back into your proper build directory.
I386mk.inc
The DDK build environment use this file which resides in the %DDKROOT%\Inc directory. If you copy this file into your proper build directory, the Build will use this file instead. I extended this file with following lines: !IF "$(ASM_LST)"=="YES" DBGFLAGS=$(DBGFLAGS) /FAcs /Fa$(TARGETPATH)\$(TARGET_DIRECTORY)\$(TARGETNAME).asm !ENDIF !IF "$(GEN_SBR)"=="YES" DBGFLAGS=$(DBGFLAGS) /FR$(TARGETPATH)\$(TARGET_DIRECTORY)\$(TARGETNAME).sbr !END ...
Read article at Internet.com site