Open the Web application you created in Walkthrough: Creating a Simple Web Application.

Press CTRL+F5 to run the Web application in the browser. You should see the first page.

Note
This starts the ASP.NET Development Server that runs the Web application your Web test is going to test. You will see the ASP.NET Development Server icon in the notification area, at the far right of the taskbar.

Copy the address of your Web application to the clipboard or a notepad file. For example, the address might look like this: http://localhost:<PortNumber>/ColorWebApp/Default.aspx

Close the browser, but leave the Web application open.

In a new instance of Visual Studio, on the File menu, point to New and then click Project.

The New Project dialog box appears.

Under Projects, expand Visual Basic or Visual C# according to your preference, and select the Test node.

Note
You will not write any code in this walkthrough. The language you choose for your project affects the language used when coded Web tests are generated.

Under Visual Studio installed templates, choose Test Project.

In the Name box, type ColorWebAppTest.

In the Location box, type the name of the folder where you saved your Web application. For example, type the folder name C:\WebSites\ColorWebApp.

Clear the Create directory for solution check box.

Click OK.

Note
By default, Visual Studio will add a unit test file and a text file with information about authoring tests. You will not need these files for this walkthrough, so you can delete them. If you do not delete the files, they will not affect the walkthrough.

On the Test menu, click New Test.

The Add New Test dialog appears.

In the Add New Test dialog, select Web Test, name the test ColorWebTest.webtest, and click OK.

A new Web test file named ColorWebTest.webtest is added to your project, and the Web Test Recorder opens inside a new instance of Internet Explorer.

In the browser's address bar, type the address of the Web application that you copied in a previous step, and press enter.

Note
Visual Studio begins displaying the Web test URLs in the Web Test Recorder as it is recording.

Choose Red and click Submit; the page with the Label that says Red should be displayed.

Go back to the first page.

Choose Blue and click Submit; the page with the Label that says Blue should be displayed.

Go back to the first page.

In the browser's address bar type the address of an external Web site. For example, type http://www.contoso.com.

Go back to the first page.

Click Stop on the Web Test Recorder to stop recording.

Internet Explorer will close and you will see your Web test in the Web Test Editor as a list of URLs. After you stop recording, you can edit the test.

Choose File and then choose Save ColorWebTest.webtest to save the newly recorded Web test.

In the Web Test Editor, go to the request tree and select http://www.contoso.com.

In the Properties window, note the values of the different properties, for example URL, Follow Redirects and Think Time.

Notice that Think Time for this request is 0.

In the Web Test Editor, go to the request tree and select the last entry before the http://www.contoso.com entry.

Notice that Think Time for this request is higher than 0, for example 30 seconds. This is the time it took you to enter http://www.contoso.com in the browser's address bar.

In the Web Test Editor, click Run Test on the toolbar.

The test starts to run, and a Web Test Viewer displays each request in the test. A Test Results window displays the result for the entire test. Next, you will verify the results.

In the Web Test Viewer select the first request in the list.

You should see a green check mark to the left of the request. A green check mark indicates that the request succeeded. You should see the first page of the Web application in the bottom pane.

In the Web Test Viewer select the request to http://www.contoso.com.

You should see either a green check mark or a red X to the left of the request. A red X indicates that the request failed. This will cause the result for the entire test to fail, after the test has finished. By default, if a request fails, the rest of the test is not aborted and does continue. For example, the external Web request to http://www.contoso.com might have failed due to firewall problems. However, the request after that, for Default.aspx, was still made and succeeded.

Note
If you are unable to access Web sites outside your local network, you might have to specify a proxy server in your Web test. This is described in detail in the next section.

To run your test a second time, click Click here to run again at the top of the Web Test Editor.

In the Web Test Editor go to the request tree and select the root node. The root node will be the name of the Web test, ColorWebTest.

In the Properties window, find the Proxy property and enter a valid proxy name. Ask your network administrator for a valid proxy name, or enter "default" to use Internet Explorer's proxy settings.

Caution
Using "default" as your proxy setting can cause performance problems when you run your Web test under load. It is better to specify a proxy other than "default" when you run your Web test in a load test.

Click Run Test on the toolbar to re-run the test.