Testing installs on a dev box

[Wolosocu]

Generally on a dev box we have all our paths set so that a Qt application can easily find the Qt (and other) libs that it needs. However, this creates a challenge when you're writing an installer for your app and want to make sure an installation will run ok on a different machine.

macOS's sandbox mode is pretty good for this. For other OSes, I suspect the best test is probably an actual different non-dev machine, or a VM.

I'm curious what other solutions people have come up with? For example, on Windows, I'm tempted to temporarily reset my paths and try like that, but I'd like to hear what others have done...

Thanks!

[mrjj]

Hi
I use virtual machines as its very handy and you can make sure its always clean.
(like vmwares snapshot feature)
I can even try update something and very easy reset it back. ( whole system)

Since you can just download one from ms
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/
the only real cost is diskspace :)

[SGaist]

Hi,

Rather than having "too easy" access to dependencies, I rather make them easy to use so that each project can be quick to setup but that outside of it, it looks like a standard box. This has the benefit of being able to isolate different project development as well as testing.

Outside of that, a CI is also a good way to test your code in an environment different than your box.

And if you want to ensure your application and deployment works as expected then tools like VirtualBox or VMWare like @mrjj suggested are very good as you can keep a clean machine ready, do your installation and tests and then rollback to the point before and start again.