WDK Include Path

Question

WDK Include Path

Amartya, Shreyank 1

I'm having trouble compiling my driver solution on VS 2022 + WDK. On some systems, the compilation works fine but on others I get this error:

Cannot open include file: 'ntifs.h': No such file or directory

After including this folder in the project settings (on system where I don't face issues these directories are automatically added to the Include directories) I get these errors:

'SDDL_UPROF_STR': undeclared identifier
'DECLARE_CONST_UNICODE_STRING': identifier not found
'SDDL_UPROF_STR': undeclared identifier
'SDDL_UPROF_STR': undeclared identifier
'DECLARE_CONST_UNICODE_STRING': identifier not found
'SDDL_UPROF_STR': undeclared identifier
'KeQuerySystemTime': identifier not found
'KeQuerySystemTime': identifier not found
'SDDL_UPROF_STR': undeclared identifier

I have tried looking into these and they are declared under ntdef.h with condition

#if _WIN32_WINNT >= 0x0500

and jumping to declaration for reveals

#if !defined(_WIN32_WINNT) && !defined(_CHICAGO_)
#define  _WIN32_WINNT   0x0A00
#endif

which indicates it should be declared and found, but the declaration is greyed out.

All the systems are windows 11 24H2

Comparing the settings with systems on which the compilation works fine I can observe that the following macros are added automatically into the include path

$(CRT_IncludePath);

$(KM_IncludePath);

$(KIT_SHARED_IncludePath);

and on the systems where compilation is broken, these macros are missing. Where are these defined? and what do they depend on ?

I have followed all steps to insure the WDK and SDK version match. I also install Windows Driver Kit.

Driver is compiled for x64.

Harry Vo (WICLOUD CORPORATION) 4,750 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-11-12T06:47:34.8866667+00:00

Hi there! Sorry for late response, have you solved the issue yet? Let me know if you still have any question! Thanks
Amartya, Shreyank 1 Reputation point

2026-01-11T11:15:26.12+00:00

@Harry Vo (WICLOUD CORPORATION) I was unable to solve this issue. However, I found a temporary workaround. For me, installing WDK using NuGet fixed the problem.
It would be nice to have a solution for this.
Harry Vo (WICLOUD CORPORATION) 4,750 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-01-22T09:29:54.1133333+00:00

Hi @Amartya, Shreyank , do you have any update?

2 answers

Your answer

Harry Vo (WICLOUD CORPORATION) 4,750 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-11-12T06:47:34.8866667+00:00

Hi there! Sorry for late response, have you solved the issue yet? Let me know if you still have any question! Thanks
Amartya, Shreyank 1 Reputation point

2026-01-11T11:15:26.12+00:00

@Harry Vo (WICLOUD CORPORATION) I was unable to solve this issue. However, I found a temporary workaround. For me, installing WDK using NuGet fixed the problem.
It would be nice to have a solution for this.
Harry Vo (WICLOUD CORPORATION) 4,750 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-01-22T09:29:54.1133333+00:00

Hi @Amartya, Shreyank , do you have any update?

Answer 1

Harry Vo (WICLOUD CORPORATION) 4,750 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi @Amartya, Shreyank , here is my new response for your recent update:

I created a new empty WDM project, but it also doesn't have "Driver Settings" under Project Properties.

If Driver Settings is missing even for a newly created WDM project, then Visual Studio is not loading the WDK project system at all on this machine.

Since this project wasn’t created using Visual Studio’s WDK templates, the WDK build logic isn’t automatically set up. So, I believe the only option left is to manually configure MSBuild:

For each driver (.sys) project, please edit the .vcxproj and add:

Import WDK props/targets

<Import Project="$(WDKTargetsPath)\Microsoft.DriverKit.props" />
…
<Import Project="$(WDKTargetsPath)\Microsoft.DriverKit.targets" />

Force the kernel toolset

<PlatformToolset>WindowsKernelModeDriver10.0</PlatformToolset>

These two steps are both required; doing only one is not sufficient.

For static libraries used by the driver:

Keep ConfigurationType = StaticLibrary

Add:

<PlatformToolset>WindowsKernelModeDriver10.0</PlatformToolset>

Do not import DriverKit props/targets into static libs.

After editing the .vcxproj files, close and reload the solution, then rebuild all configurations so MSBuild picks up the new imports and toolset.

You can also create a new Kernel Mode Driver (WDM) sample project (have to a real WDM working project, use other working machine to create) and compare its .vcxproj with your existing projects to ensure your manual edits (imports, <PlatformToolset>, property groups) match a correctly configured driver project.

Harry Vo (WICLOUD CORPORATION) 4,750 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-01-30T02:27:33.56+00:00

Hi @Amartya, Shreyank, do you have any update?
Amartya, Shreyank 1 Reputation point

2026-02-23T19:14:53.7566667+00:00

Hey, I tried adding these to the .vcxproj files of one of the projects and got this error:

C:\samartya\workspace1\xxxxx\Components\xxxxx\amdpcore\AMDPcore.vcxproj : error : The imported project "C:\Microsoft.DriverKit.props" was not found. Confirm that the expression in the Import declaration "$(WDKTargetsPath)\Microsoft.DriverKit.props", which evaluated to "\Microsoft.DriverKit.props", is correct, and that the file exists on disk. C:\samartya\workspace1\xxxxx\Components\xxxxx\amdpcore\AMDPcore.vcxproj

C:\samartya\workspace1\xxxxx\Components\xxxxx\amdpcore\AMDPcore.vcxproj : error : The imported project "C:\Microsoft.DriverKit.props" was not found. Confirm that the expression in the Import declaration "$(WDKTargetsPath)\Microsoft.DriverKit.props", which evaluated to "\Microsoft.DriverKit.props", is correct, and that the file exists on disk. C:\samartya\workspace1\xxxxx\Components\xxxxx\amdpcore\AMDPcore.vcxproj

I can see these WDK* macros:
WDKBuildFolder
WDKContentRoot
WDKKitVersion

and Platform Toolset is already set to WindowsKernelModeDriver10.0 for the projects.
Michael Le (WICLOUD CORPORATION) 11,235 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-02-24T06:17:36.58+00:00
It seems like WDKContentRoot and WDKKitVersion are defined, try deriving the targets path from those. You could try adding this before your import statements in the .vcxproj:

<PropertyGroup> <WDKTargetsPath>$(WDKContentRoot)build\</WDKTargetsPath> </PropertyGroup>

Then verify that Microsoft.DriverKit.props actually exists at $(WDKContentRoot)build\. If it does, then the import statement should work. If not, you may need to adjust the path accordingly.
Amartya, Shreyank 1 Reputation point

2026-03-02T07:11:25.0033333+00:00

Okay, even after that, it seems the .prop and .targets file do not exist. I tried searching for them in the file explorer and couldn't find them.

C:\samartya\workspace1\xxxxx\Components\xxxxx\CpuProf\CpuProf.vcxproj : error : The imported project "C:\Program Files\Windows Kits\10\build\Microsoft.DriverKit.props" was not found. Confirm that the expression in the Import declaration "$(WDKTargetsPath)\Microsoft.DriverKit.props", which evaluated to "C:\Program Files\Windows Kits\10\build\Microsoft.DriverKit.props", is correct, and that the file exists on disk. C:\samartya\workspace1\xxxxx\Components\xxxxx\CpuProf\CpuProf.vcxproj

C:\samartya\workspace1\xxxxx\Components\xxxxx\CpuProf\CpuProf.vcxproj : error : The imported project "C:\Program Files\Windows Kits\10\build\Microsoft.DriverKit.props" was not found. Confirm that the expression in the Import declaration "$(WDKTargetsPath)\Microsoft.DriverKit.props", which evaluated to "C:\Program Files\Windows Kits\10\build\Microsoft.DriverKit.props", is correct, and that the file exists on disk. C:\samartya\workspace1\xxxxx\Components\xxxxx\CpuProf\CpuProf.vcxproj

Here are some props and targets I see in C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\build\10.0.26100.0

WindowsDriver.Common.targets
WindowsDriver.Common.props

there are a bunch of other props, and not every one of those has a corresponding.target file

Also, the macro WDKContentRoot points to C:\Program Files\Windows Kits\10\
However, the actual installation seems to be in C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\
How do I fix this?
Michael Le (WICLOUD CORPORATION) 11,235 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-03-03T04:48:52.94+00:00
You should look into your .vcxproj and override the path mismatch directly:

<PropertyGroup> <WDKContentRoot>C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\</WDKContentRoot> <WDKTargetsPath>$(WDKContentRoot)build\$(WDKKitVersion)\</WDKTargetsPath> </PropertyGroup>

Then replace the Microsoft.DriverKit.props imports with what actually exists on your machine:

<Import Project="$(WDKTargetsPath)WindowsDriver.Common.props" /> <Import Project="$(WDKTargetsPath)WindowsDriver.Common.targets" />

If that still doesn't resolve it, the last resort is a clean reinstall, making sure that both the SDK and WDK are on version 10.0.26100.0 and installed in the correct order (SDK first, then WDK).

Since the issue has evolved significantly from the original ntifs.h include error into a WDK installation/path configuration problem, it would be better to open a new thread with a clear description of the current state — specifically the WDKContentRoot path mismatch and the missing props files — so it gets proper visibility and doesn't get buried in this thread.

Answer 2

Hi @Amartya, Shreyank , thanks for your update!

This issue is not caused by missing headers or _WIN32_WINNT definitions, but by WDK MSBuild integration not being loaded correctly on some systems.

In a properly configured driver project, Visual Studio automatically imports WDK .props/.targets files. These define macros such as: $(KM_IncludePath), $(KIT_SHARED_IncludePath), $(CRT_IncludePath)

If these macros are missing, Visual Studio is not recognizing the project as a kernel-mode driver project, even though the WDK is installed. As a result, the compiler uses incomplete or incorrect headers, which leads to errors like ntifs.h not found and kernel symbols (e.g. KeQuerySystemTime, DECLARE_CONST_UNICODE_STRING) being undefined.

On some systems, the compilation works fine but on others I get this error

On working systems, the WDK is correctly registered with Visual Studio, so the driver targets are imported automatically. On broken systems, the WDK installation exists but its VS integration is incomplete or mismatched (often due to install order, multiple SDK/WDK versions, or a corrupted VS component).

So, to fix this issue, simply register the WDK correctly by installing the WDK via NuGet (as you discovered). This explicitly injects the required MSBuild properties and avoids global VS registration issues.

In addition, ensure the project is created as a Driver (KMDF/UMDF) project, not a generic C++ project and verify that the WDK and Windows SDK versions match and that the WDK Visual Studio extension is installed. If the issue still persists, I highly advice you reinstall everything to make sure nothing is corrupted.

Share via

WDK Include Path

2 answers

Your answer