Wow people still do that? I'm using VMWare ESXi on a dedicated machine and it's a hell of a lot faster than imaging a drive when all you need to do is click on a snapshot, click on the "Go to" button & it's ready for use in literally a couple of seconds. I've got our QA guys using XP32, XP64, Vista32 & Vista64 virtual machines on it too (had a Windows 7 RC on it a few weeks ago for a quick look) simultaneously.
If VMWare ESXi is beyond your needs there's plenty of other virtualization products such as Microsoft Virtual PC/Virtual Server, VMWare Server, Virtualbox etc most of which are freely licensed. One of these & a decent diff application (we use Beyond Compare & I also use something called "regshot" I found on installsite IIRC) should be a good place to start. Our QA guys use something called "TestComplete" and/or "TestExecute" to run automated tests on our software & they tie that in to using Beyond Compare to do diff's on the installation beforehand to the best of my knowledge. Basically you want to be checking what your installer actually does against what it should do. Bob Arnson wrote a blog about this a while ago -> http://www.joyofsetup.com/2007/09/24/test-your-setups-virtually/ Good luck. Palbinder Sandher Software Deployment & IT Administrator T: +44 (0) 141 945 8500 F: +44 (0) 141 945 8501 http://www.iesve.com **Design, Simulate + Innovate with the <Virtual Environment>** Integrated Environmental Solutions Limited. Registered in Scotland No. SC151456 Registered Office - Helix Building, West Of Scotland Science Park, Glasgow G20 0SP Email Disclaimer -----Original Message----- From: Chris Lord [mailto:chris.l...@atterotech.com] Sent: 22 July 2009 20:07 To: wix-users Subject: Re: [WiX-users] How People Validate Their Installers I run it...plain and simple. I have a dedicated machine with removable drives that I can image to a base setup of Win2000, Win XP, Vista and a Win 7 install will be added in the near future. >From there, I can test a clean install, or I can install a previous version and make sure it gets upgraded correctly. I also check the software runs and works as it should which I can do easily as I am the developer and the setup builder. Chris -----Original Message----- From: jnewton [mailto:jonathan.new...@ni.com] Sent: Friday, July 17, 2009 18:54 To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: [WiX-users] How People Validate Their Installers I was curious to see how other people validate their installers to ensure they install the correct files, registry keys, etc into the proper locations. For example, if somebody on your development team says a file needs to be added to the installer and it needs to be installed into xyz directory, how do yall verify it was installed? I would like to develop some automated test application that determines this. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
