Microsoft Windows 98 Quality Control & Assurance 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which Windows 98 QA process involves installing the OS on a wide variety of hardware configurations to ensure broad compatibility?
- Unit testing
- Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) validation testing (Correct answer)
- Regression testing
- Integration testing
Correct answer: Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) validation testing
HCL validation testing verifies that Windows 98 installs and operates correctly on hardware configurations listed on Microsoft's Hardware Compatibility List.
Question 2: A QA engineer uses WINIPCFG in Windows 98 to verify network configuration. What is the equivalent command-line tool that provides similar information?
- NETCONFIG
- IPCONFIG (Correct answer)
- NETSTAT
- NBTSTAT
Correct answer: IPCONFIG
IPCONFIG is the command-line equivalent of the graphical WINIPCFG tool, displaying IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway for network adapters.
Question 3: During Windows 98 QA, a tester uses the MSCONFIG Startup tab to disable all non-Microsoft startup items, then re-enables them one by one. This process is formally called what?
- Smoke testing
- Clean boot troubleshooting (Correct answer)
- Regression analysis
- Acceptance testing
Correct answer: Clean boot troubleshooting
Clean boot troubleshooting involves starting Windows with a minimal set of drivers and startup programs to isolate conflicts, then reintroducing items systematically.
Question 4: Windows 98 Second Edition introduced a key improvement over the original release. What was the primary QA-relevant enhancement in Windows 98 SE?
- Added support for USB mass storage devices and improved Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) (Correct answer)
- Introduced NTFS file system support
- Added 64-bit processor support
- Replaced the FAT32 file system with exFAT
Correct answer: Added support for USB mass storage devices and improved Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)
Windows 98 SE added Internet Connection Sharing, improved USB support, bundled Internet Explorer 5, and fixed numerous bugs identified after the original Windows 98 release.
Question 5: A QA tester checks Windows 98 memory usage and finds the system slows significantly after running many applications. Which Windows 98 limitation causes this, even when physical RAM is available?
- FAT32 cluster size limits
- The fixed-size 16-bit System and GDI resource heaps (64KB each) (Correct answer)
- Virtual memory page file corruption
- The 512MB RAM ceiling of the FAT16 file system
Correct answer: The fixed-size 16-bit System and GDI resource heaps (64KB each)
Windows 98 inherited 16-bit User and GDI resource heaps capped at 64KB each; running many applications exhausts these heaps regardless of available physical RAM.
Question 6: Which automated QA practice would BEST catch regressions introduced when Microsoft released patches for Windows 98?
- Manual exploratory testing after each patch
- Running a standardized test suite against each patch build to compare results (Correct answer)
- User acceptance testing with beta testers only
- Static code analysis of the patch files
Correct answer: Running a standardized test suite against each patch build to compare results
Running a standardized regression test suite against each patch build automatically compares results to a known-good baseline, efficiently catching any newly introduced defects.
Question 7: In Windows 98 QA, a tester verifies that the Plug and Play subsystem correctly detects newly added hardware. Which component is responsible for managing PnP device enumeration?
- The BIOS exclusively handles all PnP device detection
- The Configuration Manager within the Windows 98 kernel, working with BIOS and device drivers (Correct answer)
- Device Manager runs PnP detection as a user-mode process
- The Windows 98 Registry alone manages PnP hardware configuration
Correct answer: The Configuration Manager within the Windows 98 kernel, working with BIOS and device drivers
The Configuration Manager in the Windows 98 kernel coordinates with the BIOS, hardware enumerators, and device drivers to detect, identify, and configure Plug and Play devices.
Microsoft Windows 98 Quality Control & Assurance 5
Which Windows 98 QA process involves installing the OS on a wide variety of hardware configurations to ensure broad compatibility?