Moving Load Tester™ To A New Computer

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2 February 2010
Tags: Load Tester
Posted in Load Testing

If you’ve installed Load Tester™ on a workstation, and are in the process of upgrading to a new workstation, you may be wondering how to move your Load Tester™ installation between the workstations. For version 4.0, this is not a difficult process, and generally can be completed in four steps:

Install a copy of Load Tester on your new workstation. New installers are available at www.webperformance.com/download
Copy the .WPT files from the old workstation (if they are not already saved on a network share). These files contain your recorded & configured testcases, as well as load test results.
Transfer your License from the old workstation to the new one. Licenses are easily transferred without needing to make a support request – as long as the old workstation still has the license installed. Simply open the Licenses settings on the “old” workstation, and deactivate the existing license. The deactivation wizard will create a new copy of your license which is ready to be copied to the new workstation and activate. For more discussion on License activation, see www.webperformanceinc.com/support/suite/manual/Content/License_Activation.htm
Copy your Load Tester ™settings to the new workstation. For example, you want to ensure that Validation Rules and ASM Detection Rules are copied over. These settings will be saved in %USERPROFILE%\WebPerformance

If you are not familiar with %USERPROFILE%, this is a handy variable recognized in most versions of Windows. Windows version 6 (Vista, 2008) and later will usually expand this to c:\users\<username>, while lower versions (Windows 2003, XP, and 2000) will expand this to c:\documents and settings\<username>

So what sort of settings live under %USERPROFILE%, and what should get copied?

.webperformance – This folder generally contains internal or system specific information for the application between sessions. It should not be copied to new workstations.
WebPerformance\.metadata\.plugins – most of this data contains screen layout data (such as which views are used, where on the screen they were, and the last screen location for certain dialogs), recently used WPT files, as well as some internal index caches help get the application started up faster. In general, you can copy everything in this folder if you are using the same screen resolution, but otherwise it may be easier to only copy the exceptions listed below, and then just re-arrange the screen as desired.
- com.webperformanceinc.util – this contains your frequently used Validation rules, and ASM detection rules, as well as other manually configured settings that affect how testcases get recorded, configured, and played back. Except as noted, you probably want to copy everything in this folder.
  - browsers.cfg – contains system specific information about which web browsers were last detected on your current workstation. This file should not be copied.
  - SavedBrowser.cfg – contains specific information about the system configuration the last time a web browser was launched for recording. Load Tester uses to detect accidental browser configuration errors, or crashes, and restore a web browser to it’s correct state. This file should not be copied.
  - certificates – contains cached certificates used while recording SSL sites. Since these certificates are signed by a system specific signer, this folder should not be copied.
  - upload – contains an internal cache folder of files which Load Tester may use as dynamic file uploads during a replay. If you aren’t using File Uploads during your Load Test, inspecting this directory may be a good chance to weed out old files before copying them to a new workstation.
- com.webperformanceinc.wpicore – contains many of the “remember this decision next time” options, as well as previous dialog positions. Omitting this directory tends to weed out information retained about editors for WPT files that may be obsolete, but will also restore some of Load Tester’s dialog prompts