Results for the Driver Verification Assessment

Some assessments have goals for the metrics that are captured and displayed in the Results View. The metric is usually the measure of an activity. When the metric value is compared to the goal for that metric, the status is color coded in the Result View as follows:

• Green means that the system has a great user experience and that there are no perceived problems.
  
  
• Yellow means that the user experience is tolerable and you can optimize the system. Review the recommendations and analysis to see what improvements can be made to the system. These can be software changes, configuration changes or hardware changes.
  
  
• Red means that the system has a poor user experience and that there is significant room for improvements. Review the recommendations and analytsis to see the improvements that can be made to the system. These can be software changes, configuration changes or hardware changes. You might have to consider making tradeoffs to deliver a high quality Windows experience.
  
  
• No color means that there are no goals defined for the metric.
  
  

Goals are an invaluable triage tool that helps you understand how the system is performing. A default set of goals is provided when you install the assessments. Unlike the Windows Hardware Certification tests which provide pass/fail results, the assessment goals are only recommendations.

The default goals are defined for primary metrics which measure user experiences. These goals directly correlate to perceivable quality indicators. We recommend that you use the default goals file. However, you can also define your own goals. For example, goals for a basic laptop might be different than the goals you set for a high end desktop computer, or market expectations might change in such a way that you want the flexibility to define different goals and key requirements as time passes and technology improves.

The first time that you view results in the Windows® Assessment Console or the Windows® Assessment Services - Client (Windows ASC), the default goals file is used. If you define your own goals you can use the UI to set the custom goals file location and then select the custom goals file that you want to use. You must set the goals file location and add a goals file to that location before you can use the UI to apply the custom goals. Once a new goals file is selected it will continue to be the goals file that is used for any results that are opened. The assessment tools always look for the last goals file that was used. If the goals file is no longer available the default goals file is used.

Only one goals file can be used at a time. Goals for all assessments are set in a single goals file. The assessment tools will search for goals in the following order:

1. A custom goals file
   
   
2. The default goals file
   
   
3. Goals that are defined in the results file
   
   
4. Goals that are defined in the assessment manifest
   
   

You can use the sample goals file that is provided at %PROGRAMFILES%\Windows Kits\8.0\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Assessment Toolkit\SDK\Samples\Goals to create your own goals file.

Note
You cannot package a goals file with a job, but you can store it on a share for others to use.

The Driver Verification assessment evaluates the drivers on your computer and produces results that can help you manage the drivers that are installed. The following table describes the metrics that are available after you run the Driver Verification assessment.

The Driver Verification assessment identifies issues with drivers, provides information about the way that these issues affect the system, and suggests possible resolutions. The following issues and recommendations can appear after you run the Driver Verification assessment. Issue descriptions, recommendations and links to additional information are also available in the UI.