Recording software for QA

Question

Is there any software available on Windows that could record what a QA person is doing? It would not need to be able to replay the actions... it would just need to be able to be viewed (like a video).

The problem I'm trying to solve is that sometimes QA runs into an error but can't remember exactly what they did to get it. With this tool they could just replay what they were doing.

Ideally, it should record in a "circular buffer" (e.g. half an hour long) so that only the last half hour is available for replay. That would eliminate the need to maintain the recording (i.e. delete it periodically).

Obviously, free or low cost is best :)

Answer 1

Camtesia is not free and pretty much the standard. You may want to look at Camstudio which is a free alternative.

Answer 2

It's usually best to have QA testing software in VMs rather than on a real machine, if they're using VMWare it can be asked to record a video - which seems to work great.

Answer 3

Does the Jing project fit your needs? (The "little brother" to Camtasia.)

Answer 4

Here's a free one from MS: http://communityclips.officelabs.com/Default.aspx (I've never tried it, but have heard good things).

I've used hypercam before: http://www.hyperionics.com/hc/ and have had success with it. Doesn't record audio though.

Answer 5

Hey. Recorded video is great bu as additional item. You need qa person that knows how to write bug report in the first place. Otherwise there are many situations where video won't help. Like if someone says you that after pressing ALT+F menu in application is not opening video won't help much. But when he writes that after pressing right ALT+F menu in application is not opening you will know to ask them to use left ALT. (Of course good qa person before starting a bug report would try at least both alts, but that was just a example).
If good qa person is too hard to find, or to expensive, or you have no choice but that person 9client representative) than try with video recording software.

Answer 6

Have you looked at the Historical Debugging feature in Visual Studio 2010?

Answer 7

"Problem Steps recorder" in Windows 7.
Records screen and interactions and creates a nice zipped HTML archive, that you can save and send via email.

Answer 8

"Test Manager" in Visual Studio 2010.

Records:

• Detailed interaction steps (Keyboard, Mouse, ...)
• Stacktrace
• System Information (CPU, Memory, ...)
• Video optional ...

Good info here http://blogs.msdn.com/anutthara/pages/resources-for-test-tools-in-visual-studio-2010.aspx