Testing Windows Desktop applications is a different mind-set and skill-set. I thought of letting the world know about the software’s that I use in my testing of Windows Desktop Applications. Most of them or all of them are freeware / open-source. Thanks to OSI community and freeware community.
- Process Explorer (Part of sysinternals) – Coverage on strings programmed into *.exe
- API Watcher – Move the cursor and get to know details of the API used in *.exe
- Task Manager – Helps in many ways – Brainstorm them 🙂
- Perlclip – Test Data – Download it at satisfice.com
- Log Generator – There are many software(s) which help you in logging everything you do with a *.exe
- Different types of anti-virus [McAfee, Trend Micro, Norton, Kaspersky]
- Hex Editors
- Disassemblers – Learn assembly code
- DLL decoders
- Beyond Compare – Compare two files [ Good to use if you have got source code ]
- Explore about security vulnerabilities for various *.exe and try to find if same vulnerability exists on the product that is under test – Search in various vulnerability / exploit database
- Explore on Code Coverage tools
- Use Autoit to automate some checks
- Download Sysinternals suite
- XML Editor / Notepad++ / EditPlus – Did you only know Notepad? 😀
- Know the programming languages used in the code
- Learn batch programming
- Remote Desktop tools — mstsc [Run shortcut], VNC, TeamViewer [I have tried this and works cool].
I can go on and on. Please comment with the list of tools that you use. Feel free to share this on facebook / twitter / LinkedIn / Digg / Reddit / StumbleUpon etc.
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