Page 87 - SOFTWARE TESTING & QUALITY ASSURANCE

Software Testing and Quality Assurance

versions of Internet Explorer on one computer. The Windows XP mode of the Windows 7 operating
system is used as the best mode for testing websites across versions of IE on one computer.
Running Multiple Versions of IE Using Windows XP Mode

One way to run multiple versions of IE on a computer is to run the older version/s of IE using
Windows XP mode on a computer running Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate edition.
(Windows XP mode is an optional downloaded feature of Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and
Ultimate editions that provides you a pre-installed image of Windows XP SP3 that you run using
Windows Virtual system. A recently released update allows Windows XP Mode to run on a CPU
without hardware virtualization.)

Did you know? It is also possible to set up and run multiple Windows XP modes on a Windows 7
machine, thereby allowing you to run IE versions 6, 7, 8, and 9 simultaneously on a
single machine.
The Microsoft-sanctioned way of testing multiple versions of IE is performed by installing the Microsoft
Virtual PC to its software program. The Microsoft Virtual PC was earlier a commercial software, but
now available free of cost. The Microsoft website does the job of summing up the Virtual PC.
The Virtual PC 2004 facilitates the creation of separate virtual machines on the Windows desktop. Each
of these virtual machines virtualizes the hardware of a complete physical computer. The Virtual PC
helps customers install any number of operating systems on a virtual machine.
The Virtual PC helps in setting up multiple operating systems on multiple virtual computers, where
each virtual computer has its own version of IE. This provides a clear picture on how a physically
separate machine can render a website in each version of IE. The Virtual PC allows us to customize each
browser by installing the flash player plug-in, thereby giving a broader perspective for test scenarios.
You cannot simply install the copy of Windows XP in each virtual machine. If you require three virtual
computers running on Windows XP, then you need four licenses for Windows XP -- one for your own
computer, while the rest of them are for the virtual ones.
There are certain disadvantages of using the Microsoft Virtual PC:
1. You need a separate license for each of the Windows operating systems of the virtual machine
created. (Today, large organizations have no trouble in obtaining extra licenses to install virtual
machines. You can also consider buying the older versions of Windows like Windows 2000 to
install in a virtual computer).
2. You cannot access the browsers that are installed in virtual machines from Dream Weaver’s
Preview in browser command.
3. Running several operating systems on one computer is resource-intensive, because the
computers require more power and memory to handle the load.

VMware’s free VMware Player, and VMware Server software work similar to
Virtual PC and have the same pros and cons.

6.1.4 Standards and Guidelines

It is important to have certain standards and guidelines because standards and guidelines enable a
software tester to follow the right approach of testing.
There are two levels of standard requirements. They are as follows:

1. High-Level Standards and Guidelines: High level requirements are the standards that guide a
product's general operation, design, and supported features. For high-level standards and
guidelines, it is important to analyze whether the software that is to be tested can run on
Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. It is also important to know on what browsers the
software will run. This is done by considering the platform that has its own standards and

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