UEFI Forum Sees Industry Adoption of Extensible Firmware with UEFI Testing at the Windows Server 'Longhorn' Plugfest.UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) A standard programming interface for setting up and booting a computer from the UEFI Forum (www.uefi.org). It evolved from the EFI interface developed by Intel, which was first used in Intel's Itanium line. Systems Tested at Windows Server See Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, Windows Home Server, Windows 2000 and Windows NT. "Longhorn The code name for the Windows Vista operating system. After the client version was renamed "Vista" in 2005, Longhorn referred to the server version until it was officially named Windows Server 2008 in May of 2007. See Windows Vista. " Plugfest on April 2-5, 2007 at Microsoft in Redmond Indicate the Industry is Quickly Adopting UEFI Technology BEAVERTON, Ore. -- The Unified EFI Forum The Unified EFI Forum or UEFI Forum (where UEFI stands for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is an alliance between several leading technology companies including AMD, American Megatrends, Apple, Dell, HP, IBM, Insyde Software, Intel, Lenovo, Microsoft, and , a non-profit collaborative specification organization formed to define, promote and manage the UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (specification) Extensible Firmware Interface - (EFI) A specification originating from Intel Corporation, defining the interface between an operating system and platform firmware, and aiming to reduce OS dependence on details of the firmware implementation. EFI Home. ) standard announces progress on adoption of interface standards as demonstrated by UEFI compatibility testing Compatibility testing, part of software non-functional tests, is testing conducted on the application to evaluate the application's compatibility with the computing environment. conducted at the Windows Server "Longhorn" Plugfest Event. As an evolving standard, the UEFI specification is driven by contributions and support from member companies of the UEFI Forum. On April 2-5 2007, twenty industry leading companies met in Redmond, Washington Redmond is a city in King County, Washington, USA. It is situated on the eastern edge of the Seattle urban area, in what is known as the Eastside. In 2003 the Census Bureau estimated the city population was 46,391. for the Microsoft hosted Plugfest. Although many key technologies were stressed during the event, UEFI compatibility testing was at the forefront. Microsoft intends to provide feature parity for legacy BIOS and UEFI systems in the Windows Server Longhorn release. Future Windows development will be prioritized for UEFI-enabled platforms. New and more complex system architectures demand firmware capabilities that test the limits of legacy BIOS. Highly specialized development environments and lack of a standard specification further limit the potential for legacy BIOS moving forward. An industry-wide effort to develop a standards-based extensible firmware solution has been gaining momentum in the industry. Microsoft has taken an active role in the development of the new Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) system firmware specification and support for it in Windows. "Microsoft has taken an active role in the development of the UEFI system firmware specification and support for it in Windows Server," said Bill Laing, general manager, Windows Server Division at Microsoft Corporation (company) Microsoft Corporation - The biggest supplier of operating systems and other software for IBM PC compatibles. Software products include MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows, Windows NT, Microsoft Access, LAN Manager, MS Client, SQL Server, Open Data Base Connectivity (ODBC), MS Mail, . "UEFI provides a more capable platform for system enhancements on future operating systems Operating systems can be categorized by technology, ownership, licensing, working state, usage, and by many other characteristics. In practice, many of these groupings may overlap. , and we encourage platform developers to develop and deliver UEFI capable systems." About UEFI The Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) specification defines a new model for the interface between operating systems and platform firmware. The interface consists of data tables that contain platform-related information, plus boot and runtime service calls that are available to the operating system and its loader. Together, these provide a modern, well defined environment for booting an operating system and running pre-boot applications. The Unified EFI Forum is the group responsible for developing, managing and promoting the UEFI specification. Further information about the UEFI specification and membership opportunities can be found at http://www.uefi.org UEFI, and the UEFI logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of the UEFI Forum. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. |
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