When you open QTP, you would usually come across the Add-in Manager where you can select the add-ins you want to use in your test script. Ever wondered from where QTP loads the Add-in names and their associated descriptions? In case you didn’t know, QTP loads the Add-in names and their descriptions from Windows Registry.  Let’s see how you can retrieve and change it.

Below is the screenshot of Add-in Manager that appears at start-up (If you don’t see Add-in manager at start-up, you can refer to How to Enable or Disable Add-In Manager at Startup in QTP article to see how you can enable or disable add-in manager at start-up). Coming back to the topic, you would notice that the add-in manager displays the list of available add-ins and if you click on any add-in name, the Add-in Description field shows the description associated with that particular add-in.

QTP Add-in Manager

To see where this information is saved –

a) Go to Start -> Run and hit Enter.

b) In the Run Window, enter regedit and click on OK button.

c) In Windows Registry Editor, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mercury Interactive\QuickTest Professional\ Add-In Manager

d) Click on any Add-in folder. You would be able to see the ‘Description’ & ‘Display Name’ properties and their values (as shown in the below image)

Add-in Details in Windows Registry

From the above image, you can see that the Display Name and Description values are same as displayed in the Add-in Manager window at start up.

Now lets try to change these details and see if it gets reflected in the Add-in Manager window. To change the details, double click on Description field, change the value and click on OK button. Repeat the same steps for the Display Name field. Below figure displays the modified details for Web Add-in.

Modified Registry Values for QTP Add-in

Once this is done, open QTP once again. You would notice that the Add-in Manager now displays the modified values.

QTP Add-in Manager : Modified Details

Please note that this is just a small bit of info which would not be of much practical use. Also changing the Add-in name and description wouldn’t affect the functionality of your add-in in any way. Hope you liked this info…

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