Forum Discussion

ChiefBrian's avatar
ChiefBrian
Contributor
2 years ago

Stop Resetting preferences when doing an update!!

I don't understand why Testcomplete still changes preferences when an update is installed.  This frequently costs me valuable time since certain preferences make the program not launch.  In particular the "Enable Support for Testing Windows Store Applications".  This preference gets turned on every single time an update is installed. I have reported it many times over the years to support and I don't understand why it is still being done.  Do Windows store applications even exist anymore?  Why does TC insist on this being turned on? Why not default it to off?

 

Having this feature turned on requires elevated privileges in order to launch TC projects from the cmd line or using task scheduler.  If the feature is on all tasks will fail to launch meaning no tests are ran.

 

The problem is caused by storing this preference data in a file in the install directory here:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\SmartBear\TestComplete 15\x64\Bin\TestComplete.exe.manifest"

 

This is bad practice and I am not sure why only some preferences are stored in this manifest file while the rest are stored in the correct user specific appdata location.

 

What can be done to fix this?

 

Thanks.

Command Line
Desktop Testing
  • ChiefBrian's avatar
    ChiefBrian
    Contributor
    2 years ago

    I have never heard of another app that deletes user preferences when doing an minor dot update.  In general this is considered bad practice in my understanding. If we did this to our customers they would not be happy.

     

    I rarely do the updates, only did because support asked I do so when working on another issue. Because of this rarity of doing updates my team and I forget about this odd preference that breaks all automation.

     

    If they unwilling to fix the update process to not reset the preference, then I would suggest changing the default to the more usable and common state of Off.  Are there really that many people testing Windows Store Applications? 

  • rraghvani's avatar
    rraghvani
    Champion Level 3
    2 years ago

    Update is not usually an update, as it deletes existing files. So your saved preferences will also be deleted.

     

    Either don't perform an update, unless it's necessary. Or, within your automation set the value in TestComplete.exe.manifest (not ideal!).