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Inside Microsoft's new Driver Quality Rating system

Steven Parker   on 15 June 2006 - 12:21 · 36 comments & 10995 views

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It has long been said that one of Microsoft's greatest challenges has been to support the wild and unpredictable PC hardware market, stemming from the fact that unlike Apple, Microsoft has little control over the hardware that its OS comes to reside upon. True or not, one thing is certain: a bad driver can turn an otherwise stable system into a nightmare. To help put an end to this, Microsoft is turning to a Driver Quality Rating (DQR) system that it hopes will motivate both OEMs and device manufacturers to increase their commitments to driver quality.

The DQR system relies on scores to indicate a driver's quality level, and it derives those scores from user-submitted crash reports. Microsoft's Online Crash Analysis Team will analyze crash reports to determine the ratio of crashing systems to non-crashing systems. Drivers that rarely cause crashes will be rated "Green," while moderately problematic drivers will be rated "Yellow." The horrid stuff gets a big, fat "Red" rating. (Microsoft has not revealed the exact methodology for determining these scores, only that "Green" maps to 7-9 points, "Yellow" 4-6, and "Red" 1-3.)

View: Full Article @ ArsTechnica

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#1 Neobond on 15 Jun 2006 - 13:16
Hmm, I thought that was the purpose of WHQL driver signing.

Quote -
Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) supports the Microsoft Windows Logo Program for hardware with the Hardware Compatibility Test (HCT) kits, test information, and data for hardware testing and driver signing.


WHQL Explained
#2 vetvoidunknown on 15 Jun 2006 - 15:39
Great idea. Not only will this help you to determine what drivers to use, but also what hardware to buy! No sense in buying great hardware with crappy driver support.

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