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Is virtualization a trustworthy software tester?

Is virtualization a trustworthy software tester?

I have developed an application that I need to test on several operating systems, including Win98, XP, Vista, and Win7. I am wondering if using virtualization would give accurate testing results. Will the virtualized systems give the same results as if I installed OSs on real computers?

Asked by: Guest | Views: 230
Total answers/comments: 2
Guest [Entry]

"Yes, virtualisation is a brilliant platform for software testing apart from benchmarking or testing of drivers (but even that is doable with USB support).

You may also have problems if your software is related to real hardware such as hard drive file restoration utilities (under some circumstances), or maybe programs that specifically target a feature that is not passed through the virtualisation (e.g. years ago I remember having problems with c++ programs that directly use the CPU ticks).

However, for the average program, it is absolutely fine."
Guest [Entry]

Virtualization is perfect for testing software, you can have masses of very similar instances, the difference being patches, installed software etc This allows you to very specifically test the software while all the time slightly altering the variables. Also it is incredibly easy to roll back to a 'clean' system and start in a different direction if needs be. We have a virtual system that we use to test the windows patches before they go on our main system, we see it as just good practice.