What is an Assessment Rating?

Applies To: Windows 7, Windows Vista

An application assessment, device assessment, or Web site assessment provides guidance, based on your environmental variables, about potential compatibility issues. Assessments can originate from authoritative sources, such as Microsoft or the application vendor, your organization, and from the Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) community, if you are a member.

You can view high-level assessment summaries and specific application, device, or Web site assessment details in the applicable report screen or report detail dialog box, respectively.

Understanding Vendor Assessments and Your Assessments

On the report screens and in the associated dialog boxes, there are columns for each of the various assessments, including your company’s assessment and the vendor’s assessment. The following table shows all of the icons that can appear in the Vendor Assessment and My Assessment columns, including their definitions:

Icon	Description
	Denotes applications, devices, or Web sites that function as expected on a 32-bit operating system.
	Denotes applications, devices, or Web sites that function as expected on a 64-bit operating system.
	Denotes applications, devices, or Web sites with issues that are minor or have known solutions on a 32-bit operating system. The ACT defines a minor issue as Severity 3, for example, if typographical or cosmetic errors appear.
	Denotes applications, devices, or Web sites with issues that are minor or have known solutions on a 64-bit operating system.
	Denotes applications, devices, or Web sites with major issues, such as data loss or severely impaired functionality on 32-bit operating systems. ACT defines a major issue as Severity 1 or Severity 2. A Severity 1 issue occurs if the application, device, or Web site stops responding or experiences data loss, while a Severity 2 issue occurs if the item experiences a major functionality loss, for example, if it no longer starts.
	Denotes applications, devices, or Web sites with major issues, such as data loss or severely impaired functionality on 64-bit operating systems.
	Denotes applications, devices, or Web sites that do not have any application assessment data for 32-bit operating systems. In this case, either the item does not match any information in the database or no user has submitted an assessment.
	Denotes applications, devices, or Web sites that do not have any application assessment data for 64-bit operating systems. In this case, either the item does not match any information in the database or no user has submitted an assessment.

Understanding ACT Community Assessments

The ACT community rating can rate the compatibility of an application. Ratings are displayed graphically (changing from red to yellow to green) in the Community Assessment column. To understand what the rating color means, you must first understand how the underlying community rating works. There are three available scores, based on the rating for an application.

• Works. If you vote that an application works, it is denoted as five green bars.

• Works with minor issues or has solutions. If you vote that an application has minor issues, it is denoted as three light green bars.

• Does not work. If you vote that an application does not work, it is denoted as a single red bar.

The ACT then takes your information and combines it with all of the information provided by the other ACT Community users and averages the ratings to show a color gradient from one to five bars.

See Also

Concepts

Selecting Your Assessment Rating
Introduction to the Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) Version 5.6
Phase 2: Analyzing Your Compatibility Data
ACT Community Technical Reference