Manual testing is the process of manually testing software for defects. It requires a tester to play the role of an end user whereby they use most of the application's features to ensure correct behavior. To guarantee completeness of testing, the tester often follows a written test plan that leads them through a set of important test cases.

There are several stages. They are:

This initial stage in testing normally carried out by the developer who wrote the code and sometimes by a peer using the white box testing technique.

This stage is carried out in two modes, as a complete package or as an increment to the earlier package. Most of the time black box testing technique is used. However, sometimes a combination of Black and White box testing is also used in this stage.

In this stage the software is tested from all possible dimensions for all intended purposes and platforms. In this stage Black box testing technique is normally used.

This testing stage carried out in order to get customer sign-off of finished product. A 'pass' in this stage also ensures that the customer has accepted the software and is ready for their use.

Onsite team will go to customer site to install the system in customer configured environment and will check for the following points:

• Whether SetUp.exe is running or not.
• There are easy screens during installation
• How much space is occupied by system on HDD
• Is the system completely uninstalled when opted to uninstall from the system.

Test automation may be able to reduce or eliminate the cost of actual testing. A computer can follow a rote sequence of steps more quickly than a person, and it can run the tests overnight to present the results in the morning. However, the labor that is saved in actual testing must be spent instead authoring the test program. Depending on the type of application to be tested, and the automation tools that are chosen, this may require more labor than a manual approach. In addition, some testing tools present a very large amount of data, potentially creating a time consuming task of interpreting the results.