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Test Plan/Checklist for Vista Build

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by bpark

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Hi,

Very shortly my firm will be producing it's first Vista desktop PC image to kick of the testing phase of our Vista migration project. I would like to begin the test process by testing our build itself (minus any applications) for stability, functionality etc. Rather than re-write the wheel, does anybody know of any tools or documented checklists that will help me with this process? I considered that the use burn-in tools would be a good start, but a more hands-on list of manual checks would prove useful I feel. I have searched the Net but am yet to find anything of practical use.

Any help much appreciated.

5 replies

by p.j.hutchison

Is really down to user/company specific configurations but you can use:
a) Perf Monitor/Task Manager. Record performance information over time using perf counters.
b) SiSoft Sandra. Do benchmark and hardware tests.
c) Load and check each accessory provided with Vista.
d) Sys Mark and 3dMark benchmark programs provided by http://www.futuremark.com

by howard_nyc

well, there is a lot of new stuff in VISTA, but if you already have a checklist from your last deployment ("WIN XP"?) that is a good starting point...

if nothing else, here is an excuse to inventory all your app's, since each of 'em will need its own subsection of the test plan to verify that its functionality was not impaired by this newest OS...

...and we all have test plans for each of our mission critical apps, right?

so here is an excuse to write a test plan for each of the entries in the inventory all your app's...

if nothing else is gained, this is a good illustration of why change management must become 'evergreen' as well a gatekeeper to preclude business interruption...

and oh, yeah, guess what... you also have to rework your business continutity plan, your disaster recovery plan, your deal with the hot site vendor, cold site vendor, update training of DRP tech team, ... blah, blah, blah... if this is off topic for you, sorry, I found it was all necessary during my last XP deployment and that was still a struggle to get everyone to see the obvious... let alone the secondary impacts of that rollout...

keep me in the loop, if possible, since I would like to hear more...

thanks

howard_nyc@yahoo.com

by bobhaines1

Testing all apps is very hard. You know that most apps will have some problems. One way of handling the problem is to first get a machine for yourself and use it for several weeks on your job. Then get a group of knowledgeable early adapters and get them to use the configuration. Then get a group of novice users using the configuration for a couple of weeks. If you dual boot Vista and XP and you run into a problem, you can switch back to the old configuration loosing a minimum amount of down time until you get a fix for Vista. I assume you have an inventory of all the applications that your company uses and have checked their compatibility against the Microsoft lists. I also assume that you have run the Microsoft Vista compatibility software against the hardware platforms that you plan to install Vista on. You can use Google to find them.

by bpark

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the tips. We do have a detailed application test plan, which will be the next phase of testing after the build, so those bases are covered. As for DR etc., don't even start me off on that ;-)

I had already considered the benchmarking and burn-in tools, which I will be using. However, these will only test performance and not necessarily functionality.

One of you mentioned using an XP checklist and replicating it for Vista. This would be a great idea, if we had one. We are actually going from 2K to Vista, but I don;t beleive that there was ever a 2K checklist either. This would be extremely useful as a starting point. Can anybody point me in the direction of an example?

by nav.pathak

I dont have any checklist,
But if you on UAC in control pannel you cant download any file in Vsta.

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