An application might pass all your exhaustive feature and security suites, making sure it’ll work well for the end-user. But IT admins are likely to test software all over again, using standard Windows administrator tools in the user’s actual environment. This article explains how and why to test applications with ACT.
I read through the article but I didn’t see where it stated *exactly* what ACT is testing for. Maybe I missed something (monday morning). Has anyone actually used this yet? If so, I’d love to get your thoughts on its value.
Most developers test their application, and only their application, in a sterile environment where they check for bugs and usage problems. That’s good and developers should do that. However, administrators are looking for something else. They want to know whether your application will work on their real world system with less than perfect hardware and some number of other applications without any compatibility problems. In fact, administrators likely have a whole host of real world systems with a variety of issues and your application will have to work in that environment if you want to get it on desktops.
That’s what ACT is all about. It’s doing what its name implies by checking for compatibility. You can build a database that helps the system look for particular compatibility issues with your application. In short, what this article is about is a different kind of testing, one that checks for compatiblity issues. It answers the administrator’s question of whether this application works on their real world systems. A good many great applications fail this test simply because they weren’t tested for compatiblity in a real world environment.