Fully Automated Graphical User Interface Testing with Virtual Machines

Abstract

An approach, entitled fully automated GUI testing with virtual machines is proposed in the thesis. Currently, GUI testing relies a lot on human involvement due to its unique properties. The thesis tries to address the problem by locating GUI testing in virtual machines. Through automating virtual machines, the operations involve in testing are automated. Two virtual machine applications, respectively VMWare workstation and Hyper-V, are studied in the thesis. Based on both theoretical analysis and practical use, VMWare workstation is proven to be more suitable for GUI testing. \\ The result of the implementation shows obviously that the performance of fully automated GUI testing with virtual machines is much more efficient than manual tests. Especially, when multiple test cases are performed in parallel, the efficiency can be enhanced significantly. \\ An optimized solution is proposed to further shorten the round trip time, which is named prioritized test case scheduling. The optimized solution aims to detect all underlying faults in the shortest time. With both duration and priority introduced to a test case, the weights of all test cases over final goal is calculated by Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. Through a simple example study, the result of the optimized solution is proven to be more positive than only test cases duration scheduling and only test cases prioritization.