Smart Card Application

Hi,

I have a working PC/SC Application for XP but doesnt work for Vista.

• I plugged in the reader.
• I called the API SCardListReaders() but returns an empty reader list.

I am not sure if..

• there is a link failure between the Driver and the Smart Card Resource Manager

or

• The PC/SC Application needs to be recompiled for Vista.

In the end, is there a new Smart Card Library for Vista

I have the same problem with some readers SMC (Contact and contactless), Xiring XiPass, VASCO DP850 and Oberthur OCR 150. The smart card service is correctly started and there is no error event reportes. Perhaps the problem is due to Unicode/Non unicode dll version or program. Any other idea

Perhaps have you solved the problem.

SCardEstablishContext returns error 6 - the reason can be in Smart Card Service. By default it runs manually. You should run it.

SCardListReaders doesn't return the list of readers because smart card reader driver was not installed correctly. Driver has to add some info into registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Cryptography\Calais\Readers. Just from this place Resource Manager takes the list of readers. This works for WinXP, but I suppose the same for WinVista.

Yes, the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Cryptography\Calais\Readers is empty. That is not normal because the Gemplus PinPad USB I use has been installed with windows update. The driver is VISTA compatible and is visible in the Device management window. When I disconnect the reader, the line disapears in the devices list. When I click on the properties button, Windows answers that the driver is working correctly.

I am surprised especially because this happens with 3 or 4 different readers from different constructors.

For my case, the SCardEstablishContext function returns 0, the SCardListReaderGroups returns 0 with an empty string and SCardListReaders returns 0x8010002e.

When I try to debug the program with Visual Studio2008, when the SCardEstablishContext is called the following message is displayed on stdout :

meaning that the RPC server is not available. Yet the RPC service is running !

and when the SCardListReaders function is called :

I have the same result on VISTA Premium and on VISTA enterprise.

SP_n+1

Friends, I found out that HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Cryptography\Calais\Readers can be empty after driver instalation. You can add info to this registry key by SCardIntroduceReader function. But it does not help. SCardListReaders started to work only when I had changed key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Cryptography\Calais\Current = 1 manually. I could give the list of introduced readers, but I cannot use the reader.

I develop a USB PCSC driver and still cannot understand how to install it in the system correctly and how to connect it with Smart Card Resource Manager. Could somebody help me

You have some information in the following document : http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/4/f/f4f3c957-057c-4acb-b10c-bb6087045025/WSCFDepl.doc

Normaly the driver installation creates the registry key and without additional operation, the smartCard reader must be operational. That is true on Windows NT, 2000 and XP. It seams be false on VISTA.

I found the reason of the problem. I used bulltlp3 sample from DDK. This sample contains the next code in the AddDevice function:

SmartcardExtension->ReaderCapabilities.CurrentState = SCARD_UNKNOWN;

Because my reader is USB reader I removed all serial port functionality where this sate is installed to SCARD_ABSENT or SCARD_PRESENT. It was the reason why reader driver was registred in registry, but was inactive. As I see Smart Card Resource Manager checks this state and it has to be at least SCARD_ABSENT.

I've had the same problem before after an upgrade from Windows 2000 to Windows xp.

To solve it, I had to correct the permissions on the registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Cryptography\Calais.

1. Right-click on the key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Cryptography\Calais and select Permissions...
2. Click Add.
3. Click Advanced.
4. Click Locations.
5. Click on the computername and click OK.
6. In the window 'Select user or groups', click on Find now.
7. Select LOCAL SERVICE.
8. Click OK.
9. In the window 'Select user or groups', click on OK.
10. In the window 'Permissions for Calais', click on LOCAL SERVICE and make sure 'Full control' , 'Read' and 'special permissions' is allowed.
11. In the window 'Advance Security Settings for Calais", deactivate the options 'Inherit from parent the permission entries that apply to child objects...'
12. When the window 'Security' appears, click Copy.
13. In the window 'Advance Security Settings for Calais", activate the option 'Replace permission entries on all child objects with entries shown here that apply to child objects' and click OK.
14. In the window 'Security' click Yes
15. In the window 'Permissions for Calais', click OK.

I don't now why the registry permissions have been reseted. But it seams to be a solution of the problem. I hope that Microsoft can give us a patch and an explanation of this fact !