Microsoft has reworked the PC assessment tool in Windows Vista after fielding complaints from hardware makers--but the changes may not be enough to completely quell concerns.
In May, the software maker promised to make changes to the Windows System Performance Rating tool, which aims to assess how capable a machine is of harnessing the upcoming operating system"s new features. Critics were unhappy with the way it presented scores and how it came up with its ratings.
The newly renamed Windows Experience Index includes tweaks both in the built-in software and in the way that the assessment is described. Despite these, some partners still believe that the score generated by the tool is not a balanced reflection of a computer"s abilities.
For starters, Microsoft redubbed the tool the Windows Experience Index, arguing the moniker better represents what it measures. It has also given the new name "base score" to the overall rating generated by the tool. It"s an effort to clarify that the main rating is the lowest score given to an individual component, rather than an average of each of the five subratings. The tool rates a system on its processor, memory, hard drive, graphics card and gaming graphics.