Edit

Share via

Container IDs for DPWS Devices

  • Article

Starting with Windows 7, a device that supports PnP extensions (PnP-X) and Device Profile for Web Services (DPWS) can specify a container ID by including the ContainerId XML element in the device metadata document. For more information about DPWS and the DPWS device metadata document, refer to the DPWS specification.

Note

Starting with Windows 10, the system ignores the container ID provided by a device and instead generates one on its own. It does this either by using the GUID from the device's endpoint reference address (EPR) or a SHA-1 hash of the device's EPR (if not a GUID).

The ContainerId XML element is declared as follows:

<df:ContainerId xmlns:df="">
  xs:string
</df:ContainerId>

The ContainerId XML element type is a string, for which the value is a globally unique identifier (GUID) formatted. This string is formatted as {xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}.

The following is an example of a ContainerId XML element.

<df:ContainerId xmlns:df="">
  {101392d0-5e91-11dd-ad8b-0800200c9a66}
</df:ContainerId>

The <ContainerId> XML element is required to be in the <ThisDevice> section of the device metadata exchange Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) message. The following example shows the correct placement of the <ContainerId> element in a metadata exchange message.

Note

This is not a complete DPWS metadata exchange document. For more information about DPWS, refer to the DPWS specification.

<soap:Envelope
    xmlns:soap="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope"
    xmlns:wsa="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2004/08/addressing"
    xmlns:wsdisco="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/04/discovery"
    xmlns:wsx="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2004/09/mex"
    xmlns:wsd="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2006/02/devprof"
    xmlns:df="http://schemas.microsoft.com/windows/2008/09/devicefoundation">

    <soap:Header>
        <!-- Place SOAP header information here.-->
    </soap:Header>

    <soap:Body>
        <wsx:Metadata>

           <wsx:MetadataSection
                Dialect="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/devprof/ThisModel">
                <wsd:ThisDevice>
                    <!-- Place ThisDevice metadata here.-->
                    <df:ContainerId>
                        <!--- Place the ContainerID GUID here.--->
                        {101392d0-5e91-11dd-ad8b-0800200c9a66}
                    </df:ContainerId>
                </wsd:ThisDevice>
            </wsx:MetadataSection>

        </wsx:Metadata>
    </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

If the DPWS device metadata document does not include the ContainerId XML element, the Plug and Play (PnP) manager uses the value of the device's endpoint reference address as the container ID.