What is Installation Testing in Software Testing?
Most software systems have installation procedures that are required before they can be used for their primary purpose. Testing the procedures that can be used to get the software system installed is called installation testing.
Installation testing can look for errors found during the installation process that affect the user’s perception and ability to use the installed software. There are many events that can affect software installation and installation testing can check for proper installation while checking for a number of related activities and events. Some examples include the following:
- Users must choose different options.
- Dependent files and libraries must be allocated, loaded, or located.
- Correct hardware configurations must be present.
- Software systems may require connectivity to connect to other software systems.
Installation testing can also be thought of as an activity-based approach to how to test something. For example, install the software in different ways and on the different types of systems it can be installed on. Check which files have been added or changed on the disk. Does the installed software work? What happens when you uninstall?
This testing is usually performed by a software testing engineer in conjunction with a configuration manager in operational acceptance testing. Implementation testing is generally defined as testing that places a compiled version of code into a testing or pre-production environment, from where it may or may not progress to production. An obscure reference to implementation testing is usually outside of it. Software development environments to limit code corruption from other future or past releases that may remain in the development environment.
The easiest way to install is to run an install program, sometimes called package software. This packaged software typically uses a setup program that acts as a multi-configuration wrapper and that allows the software to be installed on different types of machines or operating environments. Every possible configuration should receive an adequate level of testing so that it can be confidently released to users.
In distributed systems, especially where software is all ready to be released to a live target environment in an installation, the database can include schema changes as well as the installation of new software. Deployment plans in such situations may include backup mechanisms intended to be used to roll back the target environment if the deployment fails. Ideally, the deployment plan itself should be tested in an environment that mimics the live environment. One factor that may increase the organizational requirements of such an exercise is the need to synchronize data in the test deployment environment to the live environment with minimal disruption to live operation. This type of implementation may include testing processes that occur during a multi-tier application installation or upgrade. This type of testing is usually compared to a dress rehearsal or may also be called a “dry run”.