Windows Experience Index Editor

The quickest and easiest way to know how good a Windows PC is by checking the Windows Experience Index score. You can find out your computer’s score here: Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Performance Information and Tools.

Windows Experience Index (WEI) basically accesses a computer’s hardware components and rates it on a scale of 1.0 to 7.9. Each individual component is given a subscore and the computer’s base score is determined by the lowest subscore. For instance, if the Graphics component on your computer scores a 4, then the base score is taken as 4 even if all other components are above 5.

There are some applications that take the WEI into account for running. So if your Score is less than the desired value, the application won’t run on your computer. But there are ways to increase the WEI scores and show whatever numbers you want without making any hardware updates. Here I am going to show you two methods.

The first, and the easier, method uses a small, standalone program called Experience Index Editor.

This program presents users with an easy to use interface, from here you can change the values of your Windows Experience Index to anything you want. Each text box changes a different score in the index. You can change one or all of your index scores, but remember that your overall system rating is taken from the lowest score.

Once you have made your changes, just click on the Save button. You can immediately see the new score by going to Windows Experience Index.

Note: The programs requires admin privileges to run.

Download: Experience Index Editor

Manual Method

Now the not so easy method, aka manual method, requires a little knowledge of XML files, however if you follow this tutorial you will be fine.

Navigate to C:\Windows\Performance\WinSAT\DataStore or enter %windir%\Performance\WinSAT\DataStore in the run box and hit enter.

A new window will open with a list of xml files. Open the file that ends with Formal.Assessment (Initial).WinSAT) in an XML editor, WordPad, or even notepad would do. If you find more than one file that ends with that name, choose the most recent one.

Press Ctrl+F to open the find dialog box. In the dialog box, type <WinSPR> and click Find Next. All values you would need to edit are between the <WinSPR> </WinSPR> tags.

To change one of the values look for the following:

<SystemScore> : Change the overall rating
<MemoryScore> : Change the Memory (RAM) rating
<CpuScore> : Change the Processor rating
<GraphicsScore> : Change the Graphics rating
<GamingScore> : Change the Gaming Graphics rating
<DiskScore> : Change the Primary Hard Disk rating

Now for instance, to change the value of system score to 7.9, change the value between <SystemScore> and </SystemScore> to 7.9.

When you finish editing, save the document to your desktop but don’t rename the file. Finally cut the saved file from your desktop and paste in the original file’s location and replace it. You will get a prompt, just allow it.

That’s it. Open WEI to see your new scores.