Find answers to common questions about Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Testers.
| How many users can I simulate using Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Testers when conducting a Load Test?
You may simulate as many virtual users as your hardware allows. Licensing is based per processor and not per virtual user. |
| What is a Manual Test?
A manual test is a test for which there is no automation. Instead, test steps are outlined in a document for the tester to complete. The tester can then report test results and submit bugs as appropriate. |
| Does Visual Studio Team System support automation testing (e.g., Compuware)?
No. However, Visual Studio Team System provides extensibility points out-of-the-box enabling third-parties to develop tools that target Visual Studio Team System. |
| What is the Test Explorer?
Test Explorer is a convenient way to view all of the tests, including manual, unit, and load tests, for a given project. |
| What is a Test Project?
Test projects are standard Visual Studio projects that are specifically created to contain tests. Test projects enable users to draw a clear line between shipping development code vs. code used for quality assurance. Additionally, test projects enable a general manner of organizing tests from a test development standpoint. |
| Does the test framework manage deploying tests to machines?
Yes. Visual Studio 2005 Team System will include a general framework for test deployment that works in both of our supported scenarios: local and remote execution. |
| Can I use my own tests in the framework and get individual results?
Yes. You can do this in two ways:
1) You can wrap an existing test as a Visual Studio Generic Test and get results for it, or
2) You can make your own test type and integrate this into Visual Studio. |
| How do I migrate my scripts from existing testing tools from third party or Application Center Test?
The easiest way to migrate scripts is to re-record them using the browser recorder. |
| What protocols do you support?
We support recording HTTP and HTTPS only; however, other protocols can be tested using Coded WebTests. |
| How does Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Testers compare/differ from Application Center Test in Visual Studio 2003?
The load test features in Team Edition for Software Testers are a completely new product. The features provided far exceed those features provided by ACT. |
| Can I use these tools to load test Apache/Java based Web applications?
Yes, but the tools provided are productivity features designed to ease testing of ASP.NET applications. |
| Can I test Web services?
Yes, although there is no automatic recorder, Web services can be tested by building the SOAP payloads in the test editor. |
| What is a Web test?
A Web test is a test that is used to verify functionality of a Web application. A Web test can be created by recording browser activity and contains a list of Web requests and various properties for each request such as "think time." |
| What is a load test?
A load test is a test that is designed to put a server application under heavy user load to pinpoint performance and/or scalability problems. In Visual Studio, a load test can be based on a Unit Test or a Web Test. |
| Can I use multiple load clients to generate load?
Yes. You can use multiple clients running simultaneously to create very heavy loads. |
| Can I test ASP and ASP.NET applications?
Yes, You can easily test ASP and ASP.NET applications using Visual Studio 2005. There are features for the automatic handling of __VIEWSTATE that make ASP.NET testing easier. |
| Can I create data driven tests?
Yes. Visual Studio 2005 Team System supports the ability to bind input fields and parameters to database files such as Access, SQL Server, or text files. |
| What protocols are supported?
HTTP and HTTPS are supported through the recorder, editors, and test execution engine. Other protocols such as database and other RPC protocols are not directly supported; however, these protocols can be enabled through the extensibility APIs. |
| Is SSL supported? What about NTLM and Passport?
Yes, all of these are supported. |
| Can I convert my old ACT scripts?
There is no conversion utility for ACT scripts or scripts from third party test tool vendors. |
| Knowing what to monitor during test execution is hard, can you help me?
Yes, we provide pre-defined sets of performance counters for common applications such as IIS, ASP.NET, SQL Server and .NET. These pre-defined counter sets can be easily added to a load test. |
| What information do I receive while executing my tests?
During test execution, you receive real-time results that include system resource utilization, request statistics such as response time and content-length, error and overall summary statistics. |