Native USB 3.0 Support in Windows 8 [Video]

0

What? You may ask what gives since you have already been using USB 3.0 in your Windows 7 system. Well, unless you install USB3.0 device driver that comes with it you won’t get USB 3.0 performance through native USB support on Windows 7. What we are talking about is the native USB 3.0 support without 3rd party driver involved.

Microsoft confirms that Windows 8 will have USB 3.0 native support included in a recent post on Building Windows 8. It seems a no-brainer move considering the improvement this new standard brings, 10 times faster than USB 2.0 and much longer battery life. The USB 3.0 PC Market Forecast also predicts clearly that by 2015, all new PCs are expected to offer USB 3.0 ports and over 2 billion new “SuperSpeed” USB devices will be sold in that year alone. But the big challenge to Microsoft, more specifically to Windows,

The decision to invest in USB 3.0 was an easy one to make, but doing so without compromising the existing USB ecosystem was a big challenge to overcome. Our design had to follow the revised 3.0 specification precisely in order to enable emerging USB 3.0 hardware. There are also billions of older USB devices that Windows must remain compatible with. How do you write a single piece of software to enable the latest technology on evolving hardware, while making sure it still works with 10 billion existing devices in homes and offices across the world?

The post expressed in detail how Microsoft took steps to make this native support to happen, from a solid specification to start, to making closer partnership with the hardware industry, and to building Microsoft USB Test Tool (MUTT) to simulate a full range of device behaviors, with a video that demonstrates it in action.


If you don’t see a video here or can’t play it, download it here: High quality MP4 | Low quality MP4

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here