What does Windows Experience Index do?

I was directed to this article which suggests that Windows Vista "scales" itself based on the WEI data. Another person claims that OZC is suggesting you run WEI after updating firmware. So now I'm wondering if there really is any value to running WEI?

If it does create changes, why are we not prompted to run WEI every time Windows detects new hardware?

I'm not convinced it does anything at all and is just a BS marketing/benchmarking tool, but I'm hoping someone here can enlighten me. When I asked what changes it makes, the poster pulled out the old NDA card from his sleeve and I'm not buying it. If that were true, wouldn't all the professional reviewers have to run WEI on their testbeds for every test run? I've never seen a review that even mentions WEI.

What do you guys think?

I think if its above 3 overall, then you're able to use Aero. Otherwise its just epeen, and nobody gives a crap past that

It does not mean crap, and it does prompt you to rerun it after it detects new hardware.

Have you guys ever heard of it actually changing Windows settings?

I'll pay attention for the prompt next time. Can't be very prominent though if I missed it, but of course I never payed any attention to it before.

Here's what the WEI or WinSAT score is supposed to be used for:

If you've owned a computer for a while, and you perhaps are or were a gamer at one time, think back to years ago (I mean years, like 10+ years, or longer) when computer games came in real boxes, with real paperwork and real manuals, etc. Now, in those days - and some still do this, actually - what you'd find when you picked up a gaming or software box was artwork and graphics on the box, and information about the app or game, and then someplace on the box you'd find a small section for either hardware or system requirements meaning they would list an OS and hardware configuration that they - meaning the developers of the product - considered to be the absolute bare minimum software (OS) and hardware required to actually utilize their app/game/product.

You'd see something like this more often than not:



That's a pretty good example of what I'm trying to explain, actually. Fairly old one given the CPU and RAM listed, but the point is this:

To your average Joe computer owner (not me, I assure you), that's just a big glop of useless technobabble and it doesn't help them at all when deciding whether to purchase the game because they can't comprehend whether or not their current PC would be capable of playing it at all.

Enter a lot of customer research at Microsoft and the invention of <tada> the Windows Experience Index (aka WinSAT, the Windows System Assessment score). WEI was created and designed to be a replacement for that system requirement crap shown in that image above - a way to make things easier on the average Joe computer owner (not me, I assure you) when he (or maybe your average Jane computer owner) goes out looking to get a game they're interested in but they're not quite sure if it'll actually play or be worthwhile to buy given they have a machine that's oh, say, a few years old.

In the old days they'd have to try and decrypt the meaning of those system requirements based on their current PC (which most people would just answer with "I have a Dell/Gateway/HP, does that help?" when someone at the store asks them what kind of computer do you own). Now, enter the WEI score. Since Vista was released, Microsoft worked closely with a lot of software developers to create the "index" that we now find on many software products instead of that horrid mess of system technical info in the pic above.

Today, a customer should be able to go to a store, find a software product, look at the packaging, find the small section on the label that'll have the WEI recommendation on it (like 3.0) and remember their computer is a 3.5 or whatever, which means their machine exceeds what the software developer has determined to be the minimum WEI to run the game - in other words, instead of a whole lot of technobabble to decipher and understand, now it's just a number:

As long as their current computer's WEI score matches or exceeds the recommended WEI as listed on the product box, they should have no issues running the software. In fact, the more than can exceed the WEI, the better the app/game/product should work.

However, it doesn't mean they can't run the app/game/product just because they don't exceed the WEI recommendation; some folks with older hardware might not even make the recommendation at all - that doesn't mean they can't run the app/game/product, it just means it'll most likely run slower, with less performance, some lag, lack of responsiveness, etc. Matching the WEI or exceeding it is the goal, but it's not a "hard cap" that means if you're at a 2.5 WEI and the software recommends 3.0 that you're screwed; it'll still work, just not quite as well in terms of performance and responsiveness.

Personally I don't use WEI/WinSAT since I'm not a gamer, which is what that scoring system is primarily designed for: giving consumers a very fast way to determine if a game that requires a certain level of performance from a computer is going to run (by matching the recommended WEI) or even better (by exceeding it).

That's the general theory, at least. Hope that makes some sense of it...

Now, as for WEI or the WinSAT actually changing some system parameters to "fit" a product, well... that's a possibility, sure. When Vista first came out, a lot of software wasn't compatible yet - don't make the mistake of blaming the OS, because it's the other way around: software must be compatible with the OS first - and so you'd find some apps triggering WinSAT to cause the system parameters to change. Media players would "kick out" Aero for not being compatible with how the 3D GUI was working; when the media player was closed, Vista would re-enable Aero, and so on.

So yes, it's possible that the OS will adjust itself given the requirements of a specific app/game/product, especially things that involve video with respect to Aero. But Vista came out in January 2007, so that's 4.5 years ago and pretty much every single software developer on the planet has had ample time to revamp their apps so those "kick outs" don't occur anymore - but you'll still find that it does happen sometimes if you decide to run some app that's years old and hasn't been updated to accommodate the newer OSes (Vista and Windows 7).

I agree with what your saying.
My problem is there are folks on vendor forums that seem to think you need to run WEI when troubleshooting your system because it makes some "changes" in the OS. I can't imagine WEI is doing anything that can help someone having freeze issues after updating the BIOS for example, but that's what these people think and I don't believe it.

It's because they're wrong, simple.

What pissed me off is when I pressed this "supposed" expert to provide more info on what changes are made, he pulled some BS excuse that he's under NDA, but that it's all in the "white papers".
Yeah...RIGHT!

Thanks for the link. It's right on par with what I thought. It's just a benchmark and doesn't actually "change" anything. It certainly has no relevance when troubleshooting hardware issues.