Windows Application Driver is a service to support Selenium-like UI Test Automation on Windows Applications. This service supports testing Universal Windows Platform (UWP) and Classic Windows (Win32) apps on Windows 10 PCs. Windows Application Driver complies to the JSON Wire Protocol standard and some application management functionalities defined by Appium. If you've been looking for better support for using Appium to test Windows Applications, then this service is for you!

This Github project provides:

• Documentation
• Samples
• Issue tracking
• Functional tests
• Sample applications under test

Videos about WinAppDriver

• https://channel9.msdn.com/events/Connect/2016/202 - 8 minutes overview with demos
• https://channel9.msdn.com/events/Build/2016/Panel-Engineering-Quality - Session with Jonathan Lipps
• https://channel9.msdn.com/events/Build/2016/P499 - Longer discussion
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAJVpvaEchY - C# demo with calculator sample walkthrough

• Windows 10 PC
• Any Appium test runner (Samples and Tests in this repository use Microsoft Visual Studio as the test runner)

1. Download Windows Application Driver installer from https://github.com/Microsoft/WinAppDriver/releases
2. Run the installer on a Windows 10 machine where your application under test is installed and will be tested
3. Run WinAppDriver.exe from the installation directory (E.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Application Driver)

Windows Application Driver will then be running on the test machine listening to requests on the default IP address and port (127.0.0.1:4723). You can then run any of our Tests or Samples. WinAppDriver.exe can be configured to listen to a different IP address and port as follows:

WinAppDriver.exe 4727
WinAppDriver.exe 10.0.0.10 4725
WinAppDriver.exe 10.0.0.10 4723/wd/hub

Note: You must run WinAppDriver.exe as administrator to listen to a different IP address and port.

Windows Application Driver can run remotely on any Windows 10 machine with WinAppDriver.exe installed and running. This test machine can then serve any JSON wire protocol commands coming from the test runner remotely through the network. Below are the steps to the one-time setup for the test machine to receive inbound requests:

1. On the test machine you want to run the test application on, open up Windows Firewall with Advanced Security

   • Select Inbound Rules -> New Rule...
   • Rule Type -> Port
   • Select TCP
   • Choose specific local port (4723 is WinAppDriver standard)
   • Action -> Allow the connection
   • Profile -> select all
   • Name -> optional, choose name for rule (e.g. WinAppDriver remote).

   Below command when run in admin command prompt gives same result

   netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="WinAppDriver remote" dir=in action=allow protocol=TCP localport=4723
   

2. Run ipconfig.exe to determine your machine's local IP address

   Note: Setting * as the IP address command line option will cause it to bind to all bound IP addresses on the machine

3. Run WinAppDriver.exe 10.X.X.10 4723/wd/hub as administrator with command line arguments as seen above specifying local IP and port

4. On the test runner machine where the runner and scripts are, update the test script to point to the IP of the remote test machine

Sample Java Example :-

            DesiredCapabilities capabilities = new DesiredCapabilities();
            capabilities.setCapability("app", "Microsoft.WindowsCalculator_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App");
            CalculatorSession = (WindowsDriver)(new WindowsDriver(new URL("http://10.X.X.52:4723/wd/hub"), capabilities));
            CalculatorSession.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(2, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
            CalculatorResult = CalculatorSession.findElementByAccessibilityId("CalculatorResults");

5. Execute the test script on the test runner to perform the test actions against the test application on the remote test machine.

This repository includes some samples that can be run against built-in Windows 10 applications such as Alarms & Clock, Calculator, and Notepad. These samples showcase various commands and operations such as opening applications, finding elements, clicking elements, typing keystrokes, reading texts, etc.

This repository also includes some tests that are used to verify the functionality of Windows Application Driver itself. These tests cover each API endpoints extensively and also against all basic UI control scenario. As a result, these tests are excellent sources to see how to invoke certain command in C# test scripts. In addition, they show how to interact with some more complex UI elements such as DatePicker, SplitViewPane, Slider, etc.

You can choose any programming language or tools supported by Appium/Selenium to write your test scripts. In the example below, we will author the test script in C# using Microsoft Visual Studio.

1. Open Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 or Microsoft Visual Studio 2017

   Note: in Visual Studio 2017 make sure you have the optional .NET desktop development workload installed

2. Create the test project and solution. I.e. Select New Project > Templates > Visual C# > Test > Unit Test Project
3. Once created, select Project > Manage NuGet Packages... > Browse and search for Appium.WebDriver
4. Install the Appium.WebDriver NuGet packages for the test project
5. Start writing your test (see sample code under samples)

To test a UWP app, simply specify the Application Id for the application you want to test in the app capabilities entry when you are creating a session. You can also specify launching arguments if your application supports them through appArguments capability. Below is an example of creating a test session for Windows Alarms & Clock app written in C#:

// Launch the Alarms & Clock app
DesiredCapabilities appCapabilities = new DesiredCapabilities();
appCapabilities.SetCapability("app", "Microsoft.WindowsAlarms_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App");
AlarmClockSession = new WindowsDriver<WindowsElement>(new Uri("http://127.0.0.1:4723"), appCapabilities);

// Use the session to control the app
AlarmClockSession.FindElementByAccessibilityId("AddAlarmButton").Click();
AlarmClockSession.FindElementByAccessibilityId("AlarmNameTextBox").Clear();

You can find the Application Id of your application in the generated AppX\vs.appxrecipe file under RegisteredUserModeAppID node. E.g. c24c8163-548e-4b84-a466-530178fc0580_scyf5npe3hv32!App

To test a classic Windows app, specify the full executable path for the app under test in the app capabilities entry when creating a new session. Similar with modern (UWP) app, you can specify launching arguments through appArguments capability. But unlike modern apps, you can also specify the app working directory for a classic app through "appWorkingDir" capability. Below is an example of creating a test session for the Notepad app that opens MyTestFile.txt in C:\MyTestFolder\.

// Launch Notepad
DesiredCapabilities appCapabilities = new DesiredCapabilities();
appCapabilities.SetCapability("app", @"C:\Windows\System32\notepad.exe");
appCapabilities.SetCapability("appArguments", @"MyTestFile.txt");
appCapabilities.SetCapability("appWorkingDir", @"C:\MyTestFolder\");
NotepadSession = new WindowsDriver<WindowsElement>(new Uri("http://127.0.0.1:4723"), appCapabilities);

// Use the session to control the app
NotepadSession.FindElementByClassName("Edit").SendKeys("This is some text");

One test session typically corresponds to one app top level window. As long as you have your session alive, you can send input interactions and navigate the app elements tree. On a Windows 10 PC however, an app could trigger external changes such as toast notifications, app tiles, etc. In addition, some apps also respond to external events that can be triggered through the start menu or other sources. Windows Application Driver supports all these scenarios by exposing the entire desktop through a Root session that can be created as shown below.

DesiredCapabilities appCapabilities = new DesiredCapabilities();
appCapabilities.SetCapability("app", "Root");
DesktopSession = new WindowsDriver<WindowsElement>(new Uri("http://127.0.0.1:4723"), appCapabilities);

// Use the session to control the desktop
DesktopSession.Keyboard.PressKey(OpenQA.Selenium.Keys.Command + "a" + OpenQA.Selenium.Keys.Command);

In some cases, you may want to test applications that are not launched in a conventional way like shown above. For instance, the Cortana application is always running and will not launch a UI window until triggered through Start Menu or a keyboard shortcut. In this case, you can create a new session in Windows Application Driver by providing the application top level window handle as a hex string (E.g. 0xB822E2). This window handle can be retrieved from various methods including the Desktop Session mentioned above. This mechanism can also be used for applications that have unusually long startup times. Below is an example of creating a test session for the Cortana app after launching the UI using a keyboard shortcut and locating the window using the Desktop Session.

DesktopSession.Keyboard.SendKeys(Keys.Meta + "s" + Keys.Meta);

var CortanaWindow = DesktopSession.FindElementByName("Cortana");
var CortanaTopLevelWindowHandle = CortanaWindow.GetAttribute("NativeWindowHandle");
CortanaTopLevelWindowHandle = (int.Parse(CortanaTopLevelWindowHandle)).ToString("x"); // Convert to Hex

// Create session by attaching to Cortana top level window
DesiredCapabilities appCapabilities = new DesiredCapabilities();
appCapabilities.SetCapability("appTopLevelWindow", CortanaTopLevelWindowHandle);
CortanaSession = new WindowsDriver<WindowsElement>(new Uri(WindowsApplicationDriverUrl), appCapabilities);

// Use the session to control Cortana
CortanaSession.FindElementByAccessibilityId("SearchTextBox").SendKeys("add");

Below are the capabilities that can be used to create Windows Application Driver session.

Windows Application Driver supports various locators to find UI element in the application session. The table below shows all supported locator strategies with their corresponding UI element attributes shown in inspect.exe.

The latest Microsoft Visual Studio version by default includes the Windows SDK with a great tool to inspect the application you are testing. This tool allows you to see every UI element/node that you can query using Windows Application Driver. This inspect.exe tool can be found under the Windows SDK folder which is typically C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\x86

More detailed documentation on Inspect is available on MSDN https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/windows/desktop/dd318521(v=vs.85).aspx.

Windows Application Driver is integrated with Appium, meaning if you use Appium as part of the test runner then it will launch WinAppDriver.exe and proxy the requests for you.

1. Appium will install Windows Application Driver for you on Windows if you don't already have it. Every release of Appium is linked to a specific release of WinAppDriver and will not proxy to a different version of WinAppDriver. The easiest way to manage this is to let Appium install WinAppDriver for you.
2. To create multiple sessions with one Appium server you need Appium 1.6.4 or newer
3. When pointing a test at Appium you need to include /wd/hub on the server URI. E.g. http://127.0.0.1:4723/wd/hub

For more details visit the Appium documentation: http://appium.io/slate/en/master/?ruby#windows-application-ui-testing

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