Windows Hardware Certification Requirements: Devices

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Release Notes

This publication of the Windows Hardware Certification Requirements provides an update to the September 17, 2013 publication. These requirement changes are intended to relax the Windows 8.1 system and device requirements and give our partners greater flexibility in designing and differentiating their products in 2014.

It is important to understand the changes are to remove or modify the specific requirements listed under Summary of Changes only. All other requirements will remain to support device interoperability, compatibility with Windows, and application platform consistency. The tests associated with these removed or modified requirements will remain in the HCK to aid in your testing and measurement of your system s quality. A set of HCK filters will be provided for the purposes of achieving a passing result needed for certification.

We believe these prioritized changes introduce significant opportunity but also responsibility for our partners to understand the implications of these changes. They introduce risk that common user scenarios will not be complete or may not meet performance expectations of consumers. We encourage our partners to fully research and test the implications of these changes for themselves or in partnership with Microsoft before shipping products. The associated tests will remain in the HCK to aid in your testing, while a fix will be provided to remove or modify them for the purposes of achieving a passing result needed for certification.

Summary of Changes

The following changes have been made since the last publication.

Requirement Change type Summary of changes
Device.Connectivity.NearFieldProximity.TouchMark
Modified
Requirment modified to match existing changes made to System.Client.NearFieldProximity.TouchMark.
Device.Streaming.Webcam.Base.UsageIndicator
Modified
Requirement modified to allow greater design flexability.

Introduction

These requirements are Microsoft s guidelines for designing Windows internal or external devices. Successfully following this guidance allows a partner to receive certification for their device and signing for their drivers.

Starting with Windows 8, the certification requirements are structures in logical groups based on the features the requirements are designed to successfully expose. The features and requirements are named using a Camel Case naming convention, which facilitates grouping related requirements and communicating their relationship to the Windows feature they are intended to support. In this guide you will find a parent feature area (for example Device.Network) followed by each Network feature and its requirements. Tests assessing compliance with the features are exposed during testing with the Windows Hardware Certification Kit and can be related directly back to these requirements.

Some requirements have passed forward from Logo requirements for earlier Windows versions which used a category based structure. We have included the older LogoPoint ID in the comments section for your convenience.

Optional Features and "If Implemented" Requirements

The Windows Hardware Certification program defines product types as devices containing a required minimum set of features. Additional, optional features may be included in the product. The Windows Hardware Certification Kit identifies any additional features included in the device and tests them for compliance with the corresponding requirements. Because these optional requirements apply only if the optional features are implemented, these requirements are identified as "If Implemented" in this document. If an optional feature is exposed, the associated "If implemented" requirements must be met for the device to be successfully certified.

Device Features