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Send Test Messages

Applies To: Windows Server 2008

Use this procedure to send Message Queuing test messages.

You can use this procedure to send Message Queuing test messages. A test message is a message that is generated by the Message Queuing service on a specified source computer and sent to a target queue on a specified destination computer. The source computer can be any independent client or Message Queuing server, and the specified destination computer hosting the target queue can be any other independent client or Message Queuing server within the same forest. The target queue must be a test queue; that is, a nontransactional public queue with a queue type ID set equal to {55EE8F33-CCE9-11CF-B108-0020AFD61CE9}.

Test messages are sent to verify that messages can be sent from a given source computer and delivered to public queues on a given destination computer and, if message route tracking is enable, to track the route taken by messages sent from the source computer to public queues on the destination computer. For more information about tracking the routes taken by messages, see Additional references.

You can either create a new test queue or transform an existing public queue into a test queue. Most existing public queues can be made to function as a test queue by changing the type ID to that of a test queue. However, it is useless to change the type ID of a transactional queue or a queue requiring message authentication to convert it into a test queue, because test messages, which are nontransactional and are not authenticated, will not be delivered to a transactional queue or to a queue requiring message authentication (unless the queue is located on the source computer).

Membership in <Domain>\Domain Users, or equivalent, is the minimum required to complete this procedure.

To send Message Queuing test messages

  1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Active Directory Users and Computers.

  2. On the View menu, click Users, Groups, and Computers as containers, and then click Advanced Features.

  3. In the console tree, right-click msmq.

    Where?

    • Active Directory Users and Computers/YourDomain/YourOrganizationalUnit (such as Computers or Domain Controllers)/YourSourceComputer/msmq
  4. Click Properties.

  5. On the Diagnostics page, click Send Test.

  6. In Destination queue, click the applicable test queue, and then click Send. Or, to create a new queue to send test messages to, click New Queue, type the full queue path (such as DestinationComputer\DestinationQueue), click OK, and then click Send.

  7. Click Close to close the dialog box.

Additional considerations

  • The ability to send a test message is disabled by default after installing Message Queuing. For instructions on turning on this feature, see Additional references.

  • After sending test messages is enabled, you can also send a test message from the Computer Management snap-in. To do this, click Start, point to Run, type compmgmt.msc, and press ENTER to display the Computer Management MMC console. Then click Services and Applications, right-click Message Queuing, and then click Properties. On the Diagnostics tab, click Send Test.

  • The computer whose msmq object you select is the source computer used to send a test message.

  • You can send test messages only to test queues. All test queues are public queues and have a queue type ID of {55EE8F33-CCE9-11CF-B108-0020AFD61CE9}.

  • You cannot use a transactional queue as a test queue. Only transactional messages can be sent to transactional queues, and test messages are not transactional. Similarly, you cannot change the type ID of a queue requiring authentication to that of a test queue and send test messages to the queue, because the messages will not be delivered (unless the queue is located on the source computer).

  • Because all test messages are sent with the message route tracking flag set, if the source computer has message route tracking enabled and if the test queue is located on another computer, the route of such test messages is tracked and report messages are sent to the report queue on the source computer. For information about how message route tracking is enabled, see Additional references.

  • If you create a queue and immediately send a test message to it, the receiving computer may not receive the test message because of replication delays. In this case, wait several minutes and send the test message again.

  • You can verify that the sent test messages arrived at the destination queue by viewing the properties of the messages in the destination queue or by viewing the contents of the report queue on the source computer if message route tracking is enabled. For information about how to view the properties of messages in a particular queue, see Additional references.

Additional references