On the side as a one man consultant, this is how I roll at home: http://blog.deploymentengineering.com/2008/07/virtual-brownbag-installation-testing.html
At my day job I'm on a 10 person Build/Install team serving about 250 developers. We use a system called VMLogix that sits on top of ESX. It's a really powerful system that manages the complexity of defining complex test environments and deploying them in mass. We have a team of "Lab Managers" who work with the development groups to understand their needs and set up the images for their use but the system also allows for self service. This system doesn't support the SnapShotting story so it's a little painful ( slow ) for installation developers but it's really powerful for what everyone else needs. We are looking at moving towards TFS 2010 which has a lab mgmt component that integrates with Hyper-V. The concept is supposed to be that when you do a build it deploys to a machine and runs all the integration tests. If any tests fail it can create a work item and associate the VM state to the item so that the developer doesn't have to hunt down a QA person to get information to debug the error. >From the install side I don't sweat these things too much as my only >requirement is that we are able to install silently. At home I manage my snapshot trees so I can do my boundry testing and then move on. --- Christopher Painter, Author of Deployment Engineering Blog Have a hot tip, know a secret or read a really good thread that deserves attention? E-Mail Me ----- Original Message ---- From: Jerra <beddel...@gmail.com> To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. <wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net> Sent: Tue, March 8, 2011 6:15:24 AM Subject: [WiX-users] Setting up efficient environment for testing installation packages? This is off-topic, but I assume the knowledge can be found within this list. Can someone point me to some pages on how to setup an efficient environment for testing installation packages? I have Hyper-V 2008 R2 Server installed and I have started installing guests but I don't want to go much further until I know an efficient setup. -- I guess I need to quickly be able to restore a guest to clean state so already installed components won't interfere. -- I am testing my client/server software so I need to connect between different client operating systems against different server operating systems. I am wondering if this can be made all within the Hyper-V server. Kind Regards Jerra ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ What You Don't Know About Data Connectivity CAN Hurt You This paper provides an overview of data connectivity, details its effect on application quality, and explores various alternative solutions. http://p.sf.net/sfu/progress-d2d _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ What You Don't Know About Data Connectivity CAN Hurt You This paper provides an overview of data connectivity, details its effect on application quality, and explores various alternative solutions. http://p.sf.net/sfu/progress-d2d _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
