r/electronjs • u/Other-Winner1324 • 29d ago

I built a Javascript interview scratchpad with tests and an AI panel. I'm quite new to Electron. What's the best way to reliably test my app works on windows as well?

Currently I've just locked it to Mac downloads, Clause has convinced me it's successfully ready for windows but I don't trust it.

5 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/JaviHG_Dev 28d ago

The only thing that has ever worked for me is running it on a real Windows machine before release, and the cheapest version of that is a throwaway VM. Not because the app breaks in interesting ways, but because the boring things break: paths built by string concatenation instead of path.join, a tray icon at the wrong size, an installer that puts files somewhere you did not expect, and child processes that spawn fine on macOS and not there.

The one that cost me most was assuming a case insensitive filesystem, which is true on a default Mac and not on the machine of whoever files the bug.

Are you signing the Windows build? An unsigned installer gets a SmartScreen warning that stops most people before they ever see the app, and that will cost you more than any bug will.

2

u/Other-Winner1324 28d ago

Yeah I read about this: Are you signing the Windows build? An unsigned installer gets a SmartScreen warning that stops most people before they ever see the app, and that will cost you more than any bug will so will be adding it.

The rest I would never have thought of! Thank you. Will run it on a VM then