About Vista's "Windows Experience Index"

Title: About Vista's Windows Experience Index (Nov. 2007)

File Under: Microsoft (MS) Windows, Vista, tech

As I explore Vista (recently upgraded), I came across this little tidbit about MS Vista's "Performance Index and Tools" dialog page:

(adapted from mshelp://Windows/?id=60d9b045-e2fe-4f7a-9111-e2f2222851991033", by John Swenson, undated.)

System Specs and Bragging Rights

It’s always been difficult to measure exactly how fast a PC is and to compare its speed to other computers. Sure, you can examine all its hardware components, but that gets complicated, and it’s difficult to compare different brands of hardware. There are various speed benchmarks, but it’s not always clear what those mean or how to measure your computer against them.

It’s a tough situation for any self-respecting power user. How are you supposed to brag to your friends that your PC is faster than theirs? Well, Windows Vista introduces a new way. You can just check your Windows Experience Index score. Your computer’s performance is distilled down to a single number."
In the quest for PC bragging rights, some power users are striving to achieve a perfect Windows Experience Index score. Many are gamers or PC enthusiasts willing to plunk down $500 or more for the latest 3-D video card—or two cards running in tandem ... [et cetera]... All for the elusive goal of achieving a Windows Experience Index score of 5.9.

Wait a minute—5.9 ??

As one person on a Gizmodo.com forum wrote, “What marketing genius decided to make it a 5.9 scale?”

The technical wizards on the Windows team who designed this new tool for measuring the speed of a PC settled on a scale of 1 to 5.9 -- not 1 to 10, as you might expect -- because "The index is designed to expand and evolve over time."

At some point in the next 12 to 18 months [as of when? - Editor], the Windows team expects to push the maximum score to 6.9, and eventually to 7.9 and beyond. Maybe someday the index will actually reach 10 (or 9.9).

(This will not change any scores on the low end. A PC rated 2.8 will still stay at 2.8 unless it is upgraded with new hardware components.)

[Blah Blah Blah (like Microsoft would know what makes a good tweaked computer)]

As more people post their index scores on ShareYourScore.com, the percentage of people achieving 5.9 is going down, not up, showing just how hard it is get a perfect score. For more information about what your own score means (assuming it’s not perfect), see Understand and improve your computer's performance in Windows Vista.

Well, okay then: here's mine!

(click to view)

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