A new feature of Windows Vista is the Windows Experience Index. This is a series of scores given to parts of your PC, based on how good Vista judges them to be at running the Windows Vista operating system and 3D games.

In practice, this means a rating of between 1.0 and 5.9 for each of the important parts inside. It also gives a rating for how well the graphics card will cope with Vista’s fancy graphical scheme, known as Windows Aero.

The Windows Experience Index also presents a ‘base score’, which, while appearing to be an overall score for the PC, is in fact simply the lowest individual score.

So, what are all these scores? Well, in this Workshop we’ll look at each number and what it means, and explain how to improve those scores.

Here's how to use the Windows Experience index.