So I'm ready to test-drive Windows Vista. What next?

Many of our Windows Vista beta testers contact us excited to be test-driving the beta but wondering what to look for. I thought it might be nice to share here the test cases that we give interested beta testers. If you try these test cases and you have feedback for us on any aspect of our basic NLS/language enablement support, please let me know either in the comments section here or by sending me email directly.

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NLS data testing for Beta partners

 

This is a collection of usage scenarios that beta testers might like to try in order to verify that their locale data is correct.

 

Fonts

 

If you do one thing: Look at sample representative strings and longer pieces of text in Notepad in Vista (or in XP with ClearType turned on) at 8pt (Office UI) and 9pt (Vista UI). Are the strings readable?

If you do more: For Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek, the font to look at is Segoe UI. Look at all four styles (the italic, bold and bold italic as well as the regular). Identify any bad character shapes, or unacceptable clipping of diacritics. If you can do more, also check out strings using Microsoft Sans Serif and MS UI Gothic.

In Vista, one good way to test the UI font is by creating/renaming folders with strings set in the relevant languages.

Keyboards

If you do one thing: Make sure that you can select the keyboards that are important for your locale. Type using the keyboard you have selected and make sure that the output matches what you expect from the layout.

If you do more: Verify that the keyboards for your locale match the standards that you expect to find.

Regional Options

If you do one thing: Open up Regional Options and change your user locale. Is your locale on the list? Is it in the form that you expect? Are the sample data displayed what you expect?

If you do more: Click customize in Regional Options. Are the default values what you expect?

Are you able to edit and save these values?

Change your user locale (Standards and Formats) setting and save settings. Does your formatting change as you expect it to (e.g. in Windows calendar)?

Are the date formats that you expect available? Are there any errors in month or day day names?

If you speak a language that uses genitive forms for month names, are the month names displayed correctly in date strings?

Open up your Windows calendar. Does it look like you expect it to?

Sorting

If you do one thing: Create several filenames using characters from your language. Do they sort properly in Explorer?

If you do more: Create a list of words using characters from your language in Word or Excel. Sort the list. Does it sort properly?

 

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If you try any of this stuff and have feedback for us on what we're doing right and not right, please let me know!