Microsoft Provisioning Framework (MPF) supports development of custom providers in , Visual Basic, and . Development in Visual C++ and Visual Basic is supported by .

The workflow for developing custom providers is as follows:

1. Identify and set up the development platform and MPF SDK. The platform you choose will depend on the required functionality and performance goals. For more information, see Installing MPF SDK.
2. Build the provider, using , Visual Basic, or . The MPF SDK contains wizards for Microsoft® Visual C++® and Microsoft® Visual Basic® that generate skeleton provider objects and procedures.
3. Use regsvr32.exe to register the provider on every computer that has a provisioning engine.
4. Develop a custom namespace for the provider. Remember to reference the provider's Prog ID as the namespace's providerSource attribute.

Note Before developing a custom provider, confirm whether you really need one, and if so, to what extent you may be able to leverage standard MPF providers and namespaces. For example, suppose you want to add a row in a SQL table, then send a SOAP request to a service such as Microsoft® Hotmail®. You could support this situation by developing a custom namespace with a procedure that calls ExecSQL and SoapRequest.

Identifying the MPF Process ID, sample Visual Basic and Visual C++ providers in MPF SDK