Bruce D Katis

US Patent:

6823478, Nov 23, 2004

Filed:

Sep 12, 2000

Appl. No.:

09/660044

Inventors:

Richard D. Prologo - Redmond WA
Bruce D. Katis - Bellevue WA

Assignee:

Microsoft Corporation - Redmond WA

International Classification:

G06F 1100

US Classification:

714 38, 717124

Abstract:

A system and method for automating the testing of processing environment changes are described. Input data having corresponding known-good output based on the processing of the input data in a first state of a processing environment is received by a comparison mechanism. The comparison mechanism processes the input data in a changed processing environment as compared with the processing environment in the first state. The comparison mechanism automatically evaluates the generated output against the known-good output to identify differences between the generated output and the known-good output. If no differences are found between the generated output and the known-good output, the comparison mechanism stores the generated output as the known-good output. The comparison mechanism may also generate an error log if there are differences between the generated output and the known-good output, generate an email message including the error log, and transmit the email message to a tester responsible for evaluating the error log. The generated output, the known-good output, and the error log may be formatted in an extensible markup language format.