Raising the bar together. Introducing the Driver Quality Initiative at WinHEC 2026

There are moments in this industry when you can feel the ecosystem lean in. This week in Taipei was one of them.

For two days at WinHEC 2026 (Windows Hardware Engineering Conference) - Microsoft's first WinHEC since 2018 - we had the privilege of spending time alongside our OEM, silicon, IHV and ODM partners, and the engineers who build Windows, to talk honestly about where we are, opportunities to be better connected as an ecosystem and where we're going together.

As we shared in March, a fundamental component to raising the bar on quality across areas such as system stability, driver quality and app reliability requires coordinated execution across the entire ecosystem.

At WinHEC 2026, we shared how we're addressing this at the driver level with our partners by introducing the Driver Quality Initiative (DQI), a comprehensive, ecosystem-wide effort designed to fundamentally raise the bar on driver quality, reliability and security across Windows.

"Great platforms aren't built in isolation. Platform quality depends on early, honest collaboration across OEMs, ODMs, silicon partners and IHVs. WinHEC brings engineers together with Microsoft to align early, solve real problems and deliver higher-quality solutions for our shared customers" - Syam Poluri, Distinguished Engineer, Dell Technologies

Raising the bar on quality takes all of us.

Drivers sit at the heart of every Windows experience. They connect the OS to the silicon, components and peripherals that make Windows one of the most versatile platforms in the industry. Today, thousands of partners contribute to tens of thousands of active driver families across the Windows install base. When drivers are high quality, customers experience reliable, secure, performant devices. When drivers fail, customers experience it as a device problem, regardless of where the root cause sits.

DQI builds on the learnings and infrastructure established through the Windows Resiliency Initiative (WRI) and is organized around four pillars:

• Architecture: We are heavily investing in hardening kernel mode drivers and enabling the third-party kernel mode driver transition to either user mode driver or Microsoft authored class drivers. This is to ensure higher driver security, reliability and resiliency. User-mode driver investments include performance updates to PCIe devices with DMA support as well as Wi-fi stack (coming soon). Class driver investments include Soundwire Device Class for Audio (SDCA), introduction of the I3C class driver, NCM USB ethernet class driver as well as continuous enhancements to existing first-party class drivers on Windows 11.
• Trust: We are raising the bar for trusted partners and trusted drivers, including stronger partner verification, expanded automated analysis and updated Windows Hardware Compatibility Program requirements.
• Lifecycle: We are improving driver lifecycle management through better Windows Update catalog hygiene, including deprecating outdated or low-quality drivers, advancing SBOM alignment and enabling faster issue analysis through driver symbols.
• Quality Measures: We are expanding how driver quality is measured beyond crashes to include stability, functionality, performance, and power and thermal impact, giving partners clearer signals to improve the real customer experience.

DQI is a partnership. Microsoft is building the frameworks, tools and quality signals, and we are working with partners to raise driver quality across the ecosystem so customers can rely on their Windows devices from day one through the full life of the PC.

"Delivering high-quality drivers and resilient platforms isn't owned by any one company-it's a shared commitment. Through our close collaboration with Microsoft, AMD is focused on building a culture of joint accountability to ensure security, stability and predictable performance for our customers at scale." - David Harmon, Director, Software Engineering, AMD

What we did at WinHEC

Day 1 opened with a keynote presentation featuring our Windows leadership team, organized around three themes: navigating the evolving landscape, raising the bar on Windows 11 quality and the future vision for Windows. The keynote set the tone for the days ahead. We were candid about where we are, clear about where we're going and explicit about the partnership required to get there.

From there, attendees broke out into workshops, with sessions spanning five tracks:

• End-to-end driver quality - covering the full lifecycle from authoring and validation through publishing, and post-release health
• Platform fundamentals - power, thermal and storage fundamentals that define everyday device experience
• Exceptional device experiences - delivering best-in-class quality across media and display, camera, audio, connectivity and peripherals
• Windows Server - platform direction, reliability and the evolving requirements for modern datacenter and edge deployments
• Ecosystem advancement - end-to-end security, co-engineering tools, manufacturing and AI hardware innovation.

Day 2 shifted from discussion to application. Hands-on labs gave engineers the opportunity to put guidance into practice, from authoring and hardening drivers, executing hardware compatibility tests, and exploring AI-assisted crash analysis. Microsoft engineers worked side by side with partner teams, helping them move from understanding the guidance to applying it directly within their own engineering workflows.

Beyond the structured sessions, attendees explored demo booths showcasing the latest tools, diagnostics and technologies coming to the Windows platform. The dedicated Microsoft Experience Room brought hardware and the operating system together to demonstrate how end-to-end experiences come to life across various Windows customers, such as students, developers, creators, information workers and gamers, making the connection between platform engineering decisions and real customer outcomes tangible.

Each day concluded at the Connection Corner, an open forum where partners could engage directly with the Microsoft engineers building these tools. It was, for many attendees, the most valuable part of the event: unfiltered access to the people doing the work, with the time and space to dig into the questions that matter most.

"At Acer, we believe that continuous innovation and collaboration are the engines that drive the technology industry forward. On display at WinHEC, Windows stands out as an innovative platform that brings together partners across a broad range of expertise. The Microsoft conference is where innovation, technology and domain experts come together to unlock the true value of platform engineering." - Mark Yang, Director, Associate Vice President of Compute Software Technology, Acer Inc.

What we heard from partners

A few themes came through clearly in our conversations across the two days:

• Quality is a shared priority. Across silicon, OEM and IHV partners, the message was consistent - driver and platform quality is central to the customer experience, and the ecosystem is ready to invest.
• Innovation thrives on a strong foundation. When the fundamentals are solid, partners can invest more confidently in differentiated experiences, AI-powered capabilities and next-generation hardware, knowing the platform will support them. The energy around what becomes possible when quality is a given, not a variable, was one of the most exciting themes of the week.
• There is real appetite for this kind of engagement. Partners told us repeatedly that the combination of roadmap clarity and hands-on technical depth is exactly what the ecosystem needs at this moment and going forward.
• Transparency matters. Partners welcomed the open methodology behind driver quality metrics, the phased rollout of lifecycle states and the commitment to incentive-based distribution as the right model for moving forward together.

"The best customer experiences are built on the foundation of strong partner collaboration. WinHEC is where that work happens - engineers from HP and Microsoft aligning early, solving real problems and ensuring that what we ship together actually works for the people who depend on it every day. That kind of direct, honest partnership across the ecosystem raises the bar for everyone." - Deepak Patil, Senior Vice President, Personal Systems Engineering, HP Inc.

Looking ahead

WinHEC 2026 was an important step, but it's the start of the work, not the end.

In the months ahead, we will keep investing in the fundamentals that matter most to customers: reliability, security, performance, compatibility and quality. We'll also keep collaborating with OEMs, silicon partners, IHVs, ODMs and the broader hardware ecosystem through the Windows Resiliency Initiative, the new Driver Quality Initiative and the work we do together every day.

To everyone who joined us in Taipei this week, from our CPU, GPU and silicon partners; display, camera, audio and networking teams; IBVs, ODMs and OEMs; to the peripheral and component engineers who make the breadth of Windows possible - thank you. The depth of engagement, the willingness to work together in the room, and the shared commitment to quality made this week what it was. The work we do together over the coming year will define the Windows experience for more than a billion users. We couldn't be more energized about what we're going to build.

- Robin and Ian