We have a team of developers who focus entirely on writing test automation programs for the purpose of covering the huge matrix of test cases that Visual Studio requires.  We often configure new installs of Office and our automated tests need to deal with the special things that Office products do when you first run them after a new install.  For example, when you first run Microsoft Word after a new install, it prompts you to enter your name and initials in a dialog that looks like this:

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Our talented SDET’s (Software Development Engineer in Test) use the following function in their automated tests to suppress this dialog:

using System.IO;
using System.Diagnostics;
 
public static bool AddOffice12UserInfo()
        {
            bool passed = false;
            string[] commands = new string[5];
 
            commands[0] = @"add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common /v UserData /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f";
            commands[1] = @"add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common\UserInfo /v Company /t REG_SZ /d Microsoft /f";
            commands[2] = @"add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common\UserInfo /v UserName /t REG_SZ /d TestRun /f";
            commands[3] = @"add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common\UserInfo /v UserInitials /t REG_SZ /d t /f";
            commands[4] = @"add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common\General /v ShownOptIn /t REG_DWORD /d 00000001 /f";
 
            for (int i = 0; i < commands.Length; i++)
            {
                bool temp = StartREG(commands[i]);
                if (!temp)
                {
                    return false;
                }
            }
            passed = true;
            return passed;
        }
 
public static bool StartREG(string arguments)
{
    bool passed = false;
    int exitcode = -100;
    try
    {                
        string localpath = Path.Combine(System.Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("SYSTEMROOT"), "system32");
        System.Diagnostics.Process myProcess = new System.Diagnostics.Process();
        myProcess.EnableRaisingEvents = false;
        myProcess.StartInfo.FileName = Path.Combine(localpath, "reg.exe");
        myProcess.StartInfo.Arguments = arguments;
        myProcess.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
        myProcess.Start();
        myProcess.WaitForExit();
        exitcode = myProcess.ExitCode;
        if (exitcode == 0)
        {
            passed = true;
        }
        else
        {
            
            Debug.WriteLine("reg exit code is::" + myProcess.ExitCode.ToString());
        }
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        Debug.Fail(ex.Message, ex.StackTrace);
    }
    return passed;
}

Let me know if these Test Automation samples are useful and we will try to publish more of these.

-Christin Boyd, Program Manager, Visual Studio and Bill Robertson, Software Development Engineer in Test, Visual Studio