Editing System requirements (section)

== Software requirements ==
[[Software requirements]] deal with defining software resource requirements and prerequisites that need to be installed on a computer to provide optimal functioning of an application. These requirements or prerequisites are generally not included in the software installation package and need to be installed separately before the software is installed.

=== Platform ===

A [[computing platform]] describes some sort of [[Software framework|framework]], either in [[computer hardware|hardware]] or [[software]], which allows software to run.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.techterms.com/definition/platform |title=Platform Definition |publisher=Techterms.com |access-date=2014-01-23}}</ref> Typical platforms include a computer's [[Computer architecture|architecture]], [[operating system]], or [[programming language]]s and their [[run-time system|runtime]] libraries.

[[Operating system]] is one of the requirements mentioned when defining system requirements (software). Software may not be compatible with different versions of same line of operating systems, although some measure of backward compatibility is often maintained. For example, most software designed for [[Microsoft Windows XP]] does not run on [[Microsoft Windows 98]], although the converse is not always true. Similarly, software designed using newer features of [[Linux Kernel]] v2.6 generally does not run or compile properly (or at all) on Linux distributions using Kernel v2.2 or v2.4.

=== APIs and drivers ===

Software making extensive use of special hardware devices, like high-end [[Graphics processing unit|display adapters]], needs special [[Application programming interface|API]] or newer device drivers. A good example is [[DirectX]], which is a collection of APIs for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming, on [[Microsoft]] platforms.

=== Web browser ===

Most [[web application]]s and software depend heavily on [[World Wide Web|web technologies]] to make use of the default browser installed on the system. [[Microsoft Edge]] is a frequent choice of software running on [[Microsoft Windows]], which makes use of [[ActiveX]] controls, despite their vulnerabilities.