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Microsoft ACT standalone installation

Microsoft ACT is great for stress testing web sites. The only "problem" is that you have to install Visual Studio .NET in order to use it. I use it frequently on my dev machine but some times it is useful have it on a remote machine for stress testing directly in a pre-production environment. The steps below shows how you can copy your local ACT installation to a standalone computer.

Pre-requisite: Internet Explorer 6.0

Steps by step instructions:

• Copy the C:\Program Files\Microsoft ACT directory from you dev PC to the same directory on the remote machine


• Create the Act.Reg and Register.cmd files below


• Execute Register.cmd


• Create a local user: ACTUser with the "User" rights


• Set the Identify of the following COM objects to ACTUser (using dcomcnfg):




• Application Center Test Broker


• Application Center Test Controller


• Give full control to ACTUser on the following WMI namespace using "Computer Management": Root/CIMV2/Application/MicrosoftACT

== Save as Register.cmd ==
c:
cd "C:\Program Files\Microsoft ACT"
regedit -s act.reg
for %%i in (*.dll) do regsvr32 /s %%i
ACTBroker.exe -regserver
actcontroller.exe -regserver
ACTRegMof.exe -i "C:\Program Files\Microsoft ACT\actnamespace.mof"
ACTRegMof.exe -i "C:\Program Files\Microsoft ACT\actbroker.mof"
ACTRegMof.exe -i "C:\Program Files\Microsoft ACT\actcontroller.mof"

== Save as Act.Reg ==
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ACT]
"AppPath"="C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft ACT\\"
"ProductCode"="{E05F0409-0E9A-48A1-AC04-E35E3033604A}"
"Feature"="AppCenter_Test_for_VS.NET"
"Version"="1.0.0536"

Disclaimer: Follow the instructions at your own risk and make sure you have a working backup!