FAQ: Why am I not seeing the new extension package that I added for supporting a new technology?

In this blog, Gautam has talked about how to create an extension package and deploy it.

Excerpt from the above blog:

“Build & Deploy the extension

Build and deploy the binaries to " %CommonProgramFiles%\Microsoft Shared\VSTT\10.0\UITestExtensionPackages" directory. To deploy, you use following commands –

  • md " %CommonProgramFiles%\Microsoft Shared\VSTT\10.0\UITestExtensionPackages"
  • xcopy /y " %~dp0\bin\Debug\UITestHelloWorldPackage.* " " %CommonProgramFiles%\Microsoft Shared\VSTT\10.0\UITestExtensionPackages\*.* "

Note – The above assumes you are building Debug build which is default in VS. Also, if you are using Windows Vista or higher, you will need to do above steps from CMD window with administrative privilege to access " %CommonProgramFiles% ".

For deploying, another alternative if for some reason the author does not want to copy to the predefined directory is to add following in registry –

  • Create “HKLM\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\TeamTest\UITest\UITestExtensionPackages” key.
  • Under this, create a key with your extension name like “HelloWorldPackage” here. Set the default value of this key to full path of the extension. For example, “C:\MyDir\MyExtension.dll”. “

 

NOTE that you have to restart your Visual Studio after deploying your new extension package.

If a Visual Studio session is open before the new extension package has been deployed, that Visual Studio will be unaware of this new extension package and you will not be able to use its features.