What do you think of the new UI?

The Good: Load bars for tests, element menu, and uploading the tests to the storage server. The initial splash screen. The bindings menu is much more responsive. The quick execution status bar when running is very clean, as is the 'recorder is attaching' change with a more defined close button.

The Bad: The toolbar icons do not have clearly defined space. 'Quick Execution' looks disjointed and uncentered.

Inside test lists, the alternating "zebra strikes" for tests make it difficult to read the lines. The 'green arrow' to cause a test to continue on failure is now gray and especially hard to see when a test is selected. The new icons are also gray like the text which conforms with the generally improved theme, but also makes it harder to see.

The 'Results' tab icons are too similar compared to their 2012 counterparts with the page icon reused across the entire top.

The elements quick select menu is unchanged and doesn't fit the new theme.

What’s unclear? - Very unclear how to use recorders other than IE. Also unclear why you can't use RUN-TO or RUN-FROM in those browsers which makes troubleshooting those browsers, arguably the most important part of the new feature in my mind, require running through the entire test.

Are you having any problems installing? - The absence of options to install a "Typical" or "Complete" installation caused me to install this twice before I discovered the documentation at the bottom. When installing an execution server, it seems to be setup to have you fail, installing SQL Express by default while, it is my understand, that this is only needed on one computer.

I also had an error starting up the scheduling server which, through a ticket process, I was able to have resolved by deleting scheduling server data from the C:\programdata\ folder.

When installing an execution server with the scheduling option, the option to change servers is completely removed. It makes sense, I suppose, considering if you install the scheduling server, something you only need on one computer, that it should default to it to avoid user error, but if you're going to this length to prevent user error, you probably shouldn't be installing the scheduling server by default, or should have a "Typical" / "Complete" style installation.

Any problems upgrading and using existing projects? - My test list execution has been a nightmare. Tried running remotely... didn't work. Tried running a scheduled job... didn't work. Tried running a test list. Made it through 30/50 tests, hung up for a half hour. I force closed it and, 3 hours later, upon reopening it, it started from where it left off.

Once that list starts, there seems to be 0 way to stop it from going all the way through.

Overall I'm incredibly disappointed. The new features of queued tests and recording in different browsers would have made automated testing with TS, a process that has been very rewarding for our company, even more rewarding by increasing test coverage and allowing tests to run back-to-back, saving execution time during our week through the different environments. Without being able to RUN-TO / RUN-FROM, reliably start the recorder in anything other than IE, stop test lists from running, or have any sort of execution server setup, TS 2013 doesn't just fall short of the endzone, it falls short of the 50 yard line.

Verdict: I would recommend TS 2012 to anyone in a heart beat. But if any company started their automation journey with 2013, I think they'd stick to manual testing.

Sincerely,
RB