Executing QTP automations from a .NET class, without starting an instance of QTP

Question

Does anyone have experience building a .NET test execution harness that can execute the logic in existing QuickTest Professional VBScript automation scripts, but without starting an instance of QTP? We are in the process of transitioning to Visual Studio 2010 and the related test management tools, but we can't (justifiably) throw away our existing QTP work.

There are solutions for executing existing QTP automations, but the ones I've seen require launching an actual instance of QTP. A solution for this problem won't require invoking an instance of the QTP application (even in "invisible" mode). Naturally, invoking the libraries included with QTP is permissible, and expected.

For reference, it's the pain of launching QTP (and waiting for various parts of the application to do their thing) that we're trying to avoid. QTP is very untrustworthy to us, and has many bugs, and we want to minimize the QTP surface area with which we interact.

Alternatively, the best solution would involve transforming our existing VBScript automations into .NET automations seamlessly and painlessly, but I'm not holding my breath on that one. :)

Answer 1

QTP's automation API involves launching an instance of QTPro.exe (as you said), if all you want to do is run a script then you can use mdrv.exe (from QTP's bin directory) which loads a subset of QTP.