Before you migrate customizations from TestStand 2010 or earlier into TestStand 2012 or later, NI recommends that you familiarize yourself with the process model plug-in architecture.

The first step in successfully migrating existing customizations to TestStand 2012 or later is to determine where to implement changes in the newer process model files. Once you determine the new location for the customization, you must then consider how to integrate the changes with the changes present in the TestStand 2012 or later components.

In many cases, the TestStand components that contain the customizations you made also contain changes implemented in TestStand 2012 or later. This situation requires you to integrate the changes into a single file that contains the TestStand 2012 or later changes and the customizations you made. The approach you take for integrating files differs based on the following levels of complexity:

• Changes you made to the component are less complex than changes implemented in TestStand 2012 or later—Determine the changes you made to the component and reapply the customizations to a copy of the TestStand 2012 or later version of the component.
• Changes you made to the component are more complex than changes implemented in TestStand 2012 or later—Determine the changes between the TestStand 2012 or later version of the component and the original version of the component you modified and apply the TestStand 2012 or later improvements to the custom version of the component.

To facilitate this process, consider using one of the following recommended differ tools to quickly compare files.

Categories of Customizations

Customizations typically fall into one of following categories:

• Result processing components
• Built-in components
• Custom process model components