Content Index for Visual Studio Web Tests and Load Tests

Charles Sterling

March 28th, 20130 0

One thing we typically aren’t great about is going back and “freshening” up old blog posts…Unfortunately in many cases these posts become “THE” reference source for some topics. Luckily in the case of load testing with Microsoft tools one of our ALM partners in the UK Testhouse offered to freshen up the rapidly dated post –and keep it that way. We owe the debt of gratitude in this case to Ian Holdsworth (Thank Ian!)

Please see the current version at:

Content Index for Visual Studio Web Tests and Load Tests

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This content index is based on the Content Index originally created by Ed Glas (link to the the original post intentionally omitted in an attempt to sunset it)

VS2012 Update 1

Web Performance and Load Testing SharePoint 2010 Applications

Testing SharePoint 2010 with Visual Studio 2012

SharePoint load testing made easier with Visual Studio 2012

VS2012 Ultimate

Visual Studio 11 Beta: Test Controller Goes 64 Bit!!

Visual Studio 11 Beta–Test Agent needs to be installed on Test Controller box for Load Test

Visual Studio 11 Beta – Changes in Web Performance Test / Load Test Workflow

Getting Started with Load Testing in Visual Studio 2012

VS2010 Ultimate	New Blogs
	Visual Studio 2010 Load Testing with SharePoint – Configuring Web Performance Tests Part 1: Working With Data Sources SharePoint 2010 Search Service Application: Crawl Configuration for Anonymous SharePoint Site SharePoint 2010 Performance (Stress, Load) Testing How to: Visual Studio web performance tests – not using Internet Explorer Microsoft Test Controllers and Agents – where’s the CD??? Performance Testing Analysis Template for SharePoint Server 2010 Web Services Test Automation Guidance using VS 2010 – Unit Test & Web Test Unlimited Load Testing How to automatically run a load test as part of a build Load Testing your WCF Service in Two Clicks
CodePlex plugins
	Web services and Silverlight plugin WCF Load Test plugin SQL Load Test plugin Magic Reports for Load Testing Web Services Automation guidance for Functional & Performance Testing
Getting Started
Online Help 2010	Testing Application Performance and Stress What’s New for Web Performance and Load Testing Getting Started with Load and Web Performance Tests Creating and Editing Load and Web Performance Tests Running Load and Web Performance Tests Analyzing Load Tests Results Using the Load Test Analyzer Examining Results Using the Web Performance Test Result Viewer Managing Load Test Results in the Load Test Results Repository Reporting Load Tests Results for Comparison or Trend Analysis Creating and Using Custom Plug-ins for Load and Web Performance Tests Troubleshooting Load and Web Performance Tests
Forum	Test Tools in Visual Studio 2010 and 2012
Product Overview	Testing Application Performance and Stress
	Web and Load Testing with Visual Studio Team System
	VSTS for Testers product overview
Web Casts and Videos	Web & Load Testing Webinars
	Load Testing with Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Testers (Level 300)
	Web Testing with Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Testers (Level 300)
	Troubleshooting Web Site Performance Issues with Visual Studio Team System (Level 200)
	Testing Videos on ASP.NET
	How Do I: Create a Data-Bound Web Test?
	How Do I: Use .NET Code to Customize Coded Web Tests?
Training	Web & Load testing training at Testhouse Performance Testing Training Available from RTTS
Guidance and References	Quick Reference Guide for VS Performance Testing
	Performance Testing Guidance
	Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications
	Improving .NET Application Performance and Scalability
	Software Engineering with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System
	A pattern for successful load testing: Component Load Testing
Web/Load Test Bloggers	Ed Glas Sean Lumley Bill Barnett Dennis Stone Yun Tong Mike Taute Ari Ijä Sanjay Narang Rubel
What’s new in VS 2010	What’s New for Web Performance and Load Testing
	Product Transitions from VS 2008 to VS 2010 for Load Testing
	Introducing the Microsoft Visual Studio Load Test Virtual User Pack 2010
	Elevating the Role of the Tester with Visual Studio 2010
Web Test Debugging	Web Test Authoring and Debugging Techniques for Visual Studio 2010
	Debugging a Web Test with VS 2010
Web Test Recorder	How to: Create a Recorder Plug-In Adding Your Own Web Test Recorder Plugin to Make Record/Playback “Just Work” Web Test Recorder Plug-in Convert Comments entered in Web Test Recorder into Transactions Extensible recorder plugins for modifying recorded web tests
	How to: View Recording Log in Web Performance Test Playback VSTS 2010 Feature: View Recording Log in Web Test Playback Window
	New Tools Options for the Recorder
	More Recorder Enhancements in VS 2010
	VSTS 2010 Feature: File Upload record/playback just works
Web Test Editor	How to: Set Request Details in a Web Performance Test Request Details Editor
	Find/Replace in Web Test Editor
	Adding Loop and Branch Logic to Web Requests in Web Performance Tests Branching and Looping in Declarative Web Tests Looping and Branching in Web Tests
	Request Body Plugins How to: Create a Custom HTTP Body Editor for the Web Performance Test Editor
	How to: Use Reporting Names to Easily Identify Requests in a Web Performance Test
Web Test Result Viewer	How to: Create a Visual Studio Add-In for the Web Performance Test Results Viewer Extensible Web test result viewer plugins Tracking viewstate using a webtest playback add-in Result Viewer Plugins
	How to: Resolve Web Performance Test Playback Issues Caused by Dynamic Parameters
	How to: Use Quick Find to Isolate Dynamic Parameters in Web Performance Test Playback
	How to: Jump to Web Request from the Web Performance Test Playback
	How to: Add an Extraction Rule from the Web Performance Test Playback
	API for Processing Web Test Results
	Enhancements for Web Test Playback UI
Load Test Modeling	VSTS 2010 Feature: Sequential Test Mix
	VSTS 2010 Feature: More flexible load modeling via new options on Load Test Scenarios Configuring Test Iterations in a Load Test Scenario How to: Delay the Start Time of a Scenario Using the Load Test Editor
	Multiple Loadtest Plug-ins Creating and Using Custom Plug-ins for Load and Web Performance Tests
Load Test Analysis	Using The Virtual User Activity Chart to Understand the VS Load Engine Load test virtual user activity visualization
	Modifying Load Test Logging Settings Saving Test Logs during a load test How to: Specify if Test Failures are Saved to Test Logs Using the Load Test Editor
	Deep integration with the ASP.NET profiler
	Deep integration with dynaTrace
	How to: Configure Event Log Collection Using Test Settings
	Create a Simple Data Collector to Integrate Data into Load Test Analyzer (Tables View)Integrate Data Collector Data into Load Test Analyzer (Tables View)
Performance Reporting	Performance Reporting in Excel
Agent/Controller	VS 2010 Test Agent and Test Controller Troubleshooting Guide
	VSTS 2010 Feature: Silent Installation of Controller and Agent
	Process Model Changes in VS 2010
	How to: Specify 64-Bit Process Using Test Settings
Network Emulation	How to: Configure Network Emulation Using Test Settings
	Introducing True Network Emulation in Visual Studio 2010
	Stand-Alone Network Emulation and CodePlex
	Specifying Virtual Network Types in a Load Test Scenario
Web Test
Debugging	Web Test Authoring and Debugging Techniques for Visual Studio 2010
	Web Test Authoring and Debugging Techniques for VS 2008
	Debugging Web Tests
	Web Test Authoring and Debugging Techniques for VS 2005
	How Web tests work: Web tests work at the HTTP layer, not through the browser
	How to: Resolve Web Performance Test Playback Issues Caused by Dynamic Parameters
Extensibility	CodePlex site for Plugins and Rules
	New Item Templates for custom rule and plugin development
	Scriptable Parameter Values in web tests
	Event ordering in Web Tests
	Modifying Request Properties with a Web Test Plugin
	Better HTML parsing and validation with HtmlAgilityPack
	Creating custom IHttpBody classes for coded web tests
	Check and modify the status of extraction or validation rules
	Using new VS 2008 Web Test APIs to create Web Test Reports
Tools and Techniques
	Diagnosing and fixing Web Test recorder bar installation issues
	Disabling caching of all dependent requests
	Collecting Code Coverage when Running Web and Load Tests
	Sharing Test Results
Web Services	Web Services Plugins for VS 2010
	Load Testing Web Services with Unit Tests
	Web Services Testing
Fiddler	VSTS 2010: Making it easy to debug web tests using Fiddler
	Recording Web Tests with Fiddler
	Another Fiddler Web Test Plugin Example
	Developing a Fiddler Web Test Plugin
Data Binding	Access Methods in Web Test Data Sources
	Data Driven Web Testing With Visual Studio 2008 Team System (new)
	Custom Data Binding in Web Tests
	How to Databind Web Test Properties that don’t have the Databinding Dropdown UI in the Property Grid
	Adding Different Types of Data Sources to a Web Test
Load Test
Reporting	Load Test Reports on CodePlex
	Web-based load test reports and result management
Feature Drill Down	Load Test Plug-in Overview and Samples
	Analyzing Load Tests Results Using the Load Test Analyzer (VS 2010)Load Test Analyzer Overview (VS 2010)Load Test Analyzer (VS 2005)
	Debugging Load Test Errors
	Reading Performance Counters on Vista and Server 2008 Machines
	How to create a custom counter set
	Generating 90th and 95th percentile data as well as how to collect timing details for every single page, test and transaction
	Advanced Load Testing Features of VSTS, also here
	Load Agents
	Diagnosing OutOfMemoryExceptions that occur when running load tests (new)
	Using VSTS Test and Profilers to troubleshoot a High CPU in GC issue
	Using VSTS Test and Profilers to troubleshoot performance issues (low cpu hang)
	Troubleshooting IP Switching
	Understanding the Visual Studio Load Agent Controller
	Distributed Functional Testing with Visual Studio 2005 Team System
	Simulation of browser caching in VSTS load tests and Web tests
	What is the data in the load test results store, also here
	Adding Analysis Comments to a Load Test
	Collecting SQL counters from a non-default SQL instance in a VSTS Load Test
	Bug in VSTS 2008 SP1 causes think time for redirected requests to be ignored in a load test
	Are You Reporting Inaccurate Performance Numbers with VS 2008?
Automating Web and Load Test Execution	Parameterizing Tests to Run in Different Environments
	How to run Web and Load Tests from the Command-Line
	How to run Web or Load Tests from another process
Performance and Load Test Tools
WCF Load Tests	WCF Record/Playback for Visual Studio Load Tests
SQL Load Tests	SQL Record/Playback for Visual Studio Load Tests
Performance Tuning	Driving more load
	Improve load test performance on multi-processor machines
	Why can’t I generate more load?
Load Patterns	Load Test Plug-in – Simulate Repeated Peak Load Modeling
	Managing goal-based load using multiple perfcounter thresholds
	Modeling multiple user groups within a load test
	Dial your load – custom load patterns in VSTS Load Tests
	Implementing sync points, also here
	So you want to replay an IIS web server log?
	How is the user load adjusted for a load test with a goal based load pattern?
Unit Tests in a Load Test	Features and behavior of Load Tests containing unit tests in VSTS 2008
	Adding Console Output to Load Tests running Unit Tests
SharePoint	Testing SharePoint 2010 with Visual Studio 2012
	SharePoint Load Tests on CodePlex
	SharePoint Server 2007 Scalability and Performance Whitepaper
	Sanjay Narang’s Collection of Links on SharePoint Performance Testing
	More posts on Testing SharePoint with VSTS
Dynamics AX	Dynamics AX Performance and Load Testing: Application Benchmark Toolkit
SQL Analysis Services	SQL Server Analysis Services Load Simulator
SQL Reporting Services	Using Visual Studio 2005 to Perform Load Testing on a SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services Report Server
InfoPath	InfoPath Forms Services 2010 Web Testing Toolkit InfoPath Forms Services 2007 Web Testing Toolkit

Content specific to VS 2008 Web and Load Tests

VS 2010 is in large part additive to VS 2008. So most of these links pertain to both products.

Online Help 2008	Working with Web Tests, VS 2008Working with Load Tests, VS 2008Working with Controllers, Agents, and Rigs, VS 2008
Guidance and References	Professional Software Testing with Visual Studio 2005 Team System: Tools for Software Developers and Test Engineers
What’s new in VS 2008	What’s new in VS 2008 for Web and Load Tests?
New Web Test Features	Recorder now records AJAX and popups
	Easily bind to csv or XML
	Support for multiple web test plugins and parameterized plugins
	API improvements
	Request-level plugins
	Correlation helper
New Load Test Features	Load test result manager
	Summary report
	Support for multiple graphs, new performance graph, vertical zoom, synch zoom
	New load model for user pacing, users running
	User init/terminate functions, also here
	Support for iteration count, cool down
	Unit tests under load performance improvements
	Custom Data Binding in Web Tests
New in SP1	New Web Test APIs for page boundaries and error handling
	New Load Test APIs for load modeling
	Support for IE8 and FireFox3 playback emulation
	Support for random extraction of text
Web Tests	New rules for Inner Text parsing, list, and combo box
	How to upload a file in a web test
Load Tests
	How Do I: Use the Visual Studio Team System Test Load Agent?

Content specific to VS 2005 Web and Load Tests

Many of the issues we wrote about for VS 2005 were addressed in VS 2008. I’ve decided to pull those articles that are no longer applicable to 2008 into a separate table below. Note that some links above were written to 2005, but partially or in whole still apply to 2008 so I’ve left them in the table above. Links below really no longer pertain to 2005. So if you are using 2005, you should also go through the content in both tables.

Getting Started
Online Help	Working with Web Tests, VS 2005
	Working with Load Tests, VS 2005
	Working with Controllers, Agents, and Rigs, VS 2005
Web Test
Overview	Introducing Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System Web Testing
Debugging	Web Test Authoring and Debugging Techniques for VS 2005
	Can I call a web test from a web test (VS 2005)?
Tools	Adding multiple plugins to a web test
	Stopping a webtest on a request error (VS 2005)
	Custom ExtractionRule to extract form fields by index
	A custom ValidationRule to catch redirects to error pages (VS 2005)
	Testing web applications with pop ups (VS 2005)
	Dynamic QueryString Correlation: Custom Extraction Rules and WebTest Plug-in (VS 2005)
Load Test
Reporting	Web-based load test reports and result management
Feature Drill Down	Adding an IE7 Browser Template for use by Web Tests
Load Patterns	Load Test Modeling: How to Simulate User Logon and Execute Tests in a Test Mix (VS 2005)
Techniques	Limiting the number of tests run in a load test (VS 2005)
	Deleting old load test results (VS 2005)

Visual Studio Team Test, Visual Studio Load Controller, Web Test, Load Test, Guidance, Patterns and Practices, tsbt-tst, Load Agent, Web Test Recorder, Pages

About the author:

Ian Holdsworth is a Visual Studio Consultant with Testhouse a Microsoft Gold ALM Partner. Ian has been in Software Development for roughly 25 years and is currently specialising in Visual Studio Test Tools (Web & Load Testing, Coded UI, Microsoft Test Manager and Team Foundation Server).

Content Index for Visual Studio Web Tests and Load Tests

Charles Sterling

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