Overview for Basic PC 97

Basic PC 97 defines a standard PC (both desktop and mobile) with no particular market category or customer application. This PC is designed to support typical Windows-based applications running under either the Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows NT Workstation operating system.

The new critical design requirements for PC 97 are the following:

• Support for Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI), the OnNow design initiative, and Plug and Play for essentially all system components
• Compliance with specified industry standards for all buses and devices
• Compliance with guidelines for ease of use for installation, configuration, and daily use of the PC system and peripherals

The Basic PC 97 requirements serve as the basis for all system requirements for the "Designed for Microsoft Windows" logo, with the requirements for Workstation PC 97 and Entertainment PC 97 defined as differences from these basic requirements.

For PC 97, the following definitions are used to distinguish the types of devices present in a PC system:

• System devices (or system board device) are those devices on the system board such as interrupt controllers, keyboard controller, real-time clock, direct memory access (DMA) page registers, DMA controllers, memory controllers, floppy disk controller (FDC), IDE ports, serial and parallel ports, PCI bridges, and so on. In today's PCs, these devices are typically integrated in the supporting chip set.
• Add-on devices are those devices traditionally added to the base PC system to add functionality, such as audio, networking, graphics, SCSI controller, dedicated tape backup, uninterruptible power supply (UPS), and so on. Add-on devices fall into two categories: devices built onto the system board, or devices on expansion cards added to the system through a system board connector such as ISA or PCI.

Important The system requirements defined in PC 97 Hardware Design Guide provide guidelines for designing PC systems that best run Windows 95 and Windows NT. These design requirements are not the basic system requirements for running the Windows operating system.

Hardware features are described as Required, Recommended, or Optional for the "Designed for Microsoft Windows" logo program:

• Required: These basic hardware features must be implemented to qualify for the "Designed for Microsoft Windows" logo.
• Recommended: These features add functionality supported by the Windows operating systems. For "Designed for Microsoft Windows" logo testing, if a recommended feature is implemented, it must meet the standards for that feature as defined in this guide. Some recommended features might become requirements under the logo program in the future.
• Optional: These features are neither required nor recommended, but if the feature is implemented in a PC 97 system, it must meet the specified requirements. These features will not become requirements under the logo program in the future.