Windows Hardware Certification Requirements: Devices

Updated: September 4, 2013

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Important

Microsoft Corporation Technical Documentation License Agreement

READ THIS! THIS IS A LEGAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN MICROSOFT CORPORATION ("MICROSOFT") AND THE RECIPIENT OF THESE MATERIALS, WHETHER AN INDIVIDUAL OR AN ENTITY ("YOU"). IF YOU HAVE ACCESSED THIS AGREEMENT IN THE PROCESS OF DOWNLOADING MATERIALS ("MATERIALS") FROM A MICROSOFT WEB SITE, BY CLICKING "I ACCEPT", DOWNLOADING, USING OR PROVIDING FEEDBACK ON THE MATERIALS, YOU AGREE TO THESE TERMS. IF THIS AGREEMENT IS ATTACHED TO MATERIALS, BY ACCESSING, USING OR PROVIDING FEEDBACK ON THE ATTACHED MATERIALS, YOU AGREE TO THESE TERMS.

For good and valuable consideration, the receipt and sufficiency of which are acknowledged, You and Microsoft agree as follows:

You may review these Materials only (a) as a reference to assist You in planning and designing Your product, service or technology ("Product") to interface with a Microsoft Product as described in these Materials; and (b) to provide feedback on these Materials to Microsoft. All other rights are retained by Microsoft; this agreement does not give You rights under any Microsoft patents. You may not (i) remove this agreement or any notices from these Materials, or (ii) give any part of these Materials, or assign or otherwise provide Your rights under this agreement, to anyone else.
These Materials may contain preliminary information or inaccuracies, and may not correctly represent any associated Microsoft Product as commercially released. All Materials are provided entirely "AS IS." To the extent permitted by law, MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, DISCLAIMS ALL EXPRESS, IMPLIED AND STATUTORY WARRANTIES, AND ASSUMES NO LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGES OF ANY TYPE IN CONNECTION WITH THESE MATERIALS OR ANY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IN THEM.
If You are an entity and (a) merge into another entity or (b) a controlling ownership interest in You changes, Your right to use these Materials automatically terminates and You must destroy them.
You have no obligation to give Microsoft any suggestions, comments or other feedback ("Feedback") relating to these Materials. However, any Feedback you voluntarily provide may be used in Microsoft Products and related specifications or other documentation (collectively, "Microsoft Offerings") which in turn may be relied upon by other third parties to develop their own Products. Accordingly, if You do give Microsoft Feedback on any version of these Materials or the Microsoft Offerings to which they apply, You agree: (a) Microsoft may freely use, reproduce, license, distribute, and otherwise commercialize Your Feedback in any Microsoft Offering; (b) You also grant third parties, without charge, only those patent rights necessary to enable other Products to use or interface with any specific parts of a Microsoft Product that incorporate Your Feedback; and (c) You will not give Microsoft any Feedback (i) that You have reason to believe is subject to any patent, copyright or other intellectual property claim or right of any third party; or (ii) subject to license terms which seek to require any Microsoft Offering incorporating or derived from such Feedback, or other Microsoft intellectual property, to be licensed to or otherwise shared with any third party.
Microsoft has no obligation to maintain confidentiality of any Microsoft Offering, but otherwise the confidentiality of Your Feedback, including Your identity as the source of such Feedback, is governed by Your NDA.
This agreement is governed by the laws of the State of Washington. Any dispute involving it must be brought in the federal or state superior courts located in King County, Washington, and You waive any defenses allowing the dispute to be litigated elsewhere. If there is litigation, the losing party must pay the other party’s reasonable attorneys’ fees, costs and other expenses. If any part of this agreement is unenforceable, it will be considered modified to the extent necessary to make it enforceable, and the remainder shall continue in effect. This agreement is the entire agreement between You and Microsoft concerning these Materials; it may be changed only by a written document signed by both You and Microsoft.

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 and will be effective January 1, 2014.

Requirement	Change type	Summary of changes
Device.Audio.Base.Fidelity	Removed	Requirement removed to enable less complex audio designs and greater design flexibility.
Device.Audio.Base.InAirFidelity	Removed	Requirement removed to enable less complex audio designs and greater design flexibility.
Device.Digitizer.Touch.Bezel	Removed	Requirement removed to enable greater flexibility in bezel designs for touch enabled systems.
Device.Network.LAN.SRIOV.SRIOV	Modified	Requirement modified to enable greater flexibility in network interface designs.
Device.Network.WLAN.Base.MeetPerformanceReq	Modified	Requirement modified to allow for increased acceptable network device parts.
Device.Storage.Enclosure.DriveIdentification	Modified	Requirement modified to enable storage space features
Device.Storage.Hd.Sas.ComplyWithIndustrySpec	Modified	Requirement modified to enable storage space features

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.

Windows Hardware Certification Requirements: Devices

Release Notes

Summary of Changes

Introduction

Optional Features and "If Implemented" Requirements

Device Features