Automated Predeployment Testing of Windows Applications

Three ways to improve your application testing experience

Written by Samit Halvadia | Sep 23, 2020 4:00:00 PM

Working in enterprise technology for the past 20 years, I have had the opportunity to work from home (relatively effectively) for the last 15 years. With everything going on around us right now, I would take a moment to share some of my lighter observations around human behavior in a time of crisis.

For instance, I am shocked that the most uttered phrase over the last five weeks in my household has been, “was that a good idea?”

As a father of two small children (Ariana 6 and Clark 5), this phase has followed just about any action that you can imagine that two inquisitive tiny humans can execute. Dipping grapes in ketchup to coloring our rug with markers to “make it more beautiful,” to trying to catch fish in a home aquarium with their hands. As you can imagine, most of these actions typically yield poor outcomes ranging from disgust to regret to tears. I’m usually left saying, “just because you can… doesn’t mean that you should.”

And, channelling my inner nerd, this got me to thinking about application testing. Historically, organizations have been focused on the concept of compatibility when it came to test for any migration (Windows OS, VDI, moving workloads to the cloud, and more). While understanding whether and application will install on your desired platform is an essential facet of testing, it is the most basic one. During the last “great transformation” (Windows XP > Windows 7), compatibility had been a real issue…but as development methodologies, enterprise platforms, and application delivery have gotten more mature, it’s no longer the problem that it once was.   

Now, more than ever, organizations are focusing on user experience. As cutting-edge companies try to attract and retain the top talent in the next generation of workforce, having a flexible and fantastic user experience (ranging from devices to favorite applications) is almost seen as a fundamental human right (insert eye roll here). And don’t forget that application compatibility testing just doesn’t cut it anymore. 

Rimo3 has created an automated testing platform that focuses on the application experience. When you apply the principles of design thinking and value engineering to application testing, here are the top three questions to answer: 

  • Can the user install the application? Can I install it?
  • Can the user use it the way that they want to? Should I install it?
  • Can the user do their job? Will it work?

For a user-first lens on application testing, you need information about compatibility, performance, and functionality. And, excitingly, the upcoming release of Rimo3’s platform will round out the trifecta by incorporating automated application performance step testing to capture metrics such as CPU, memory, disk, network, and GPU to answer the fundamental question: SHOULD I install this application on the new platform? 

But in the meantime, let me stress that there are exceptions to the “just because you can… doesn’t mean that you should” rule. We had a beautiful day in Chicago earlier in the week (a very rare occurrence thus far during the shelter at home) and my son decided that he wanted to go in the backyard, lay down, take a nap, listen to some music, and dance (all at the same time). I told him that those things typically don’t go hand in hand. He responded with “watch this Daddy”… 

Discover how to improve your application testing experience with one easy platform, request a demo >