A method of verifying compatibility of a computer equipment with a software product, the method comprising: (a) gathering configuration information about at least one configuration of the computer equipment on a test server or at the computer equipment by posing questions to a human tester at the computer equipment or at another computer system co-located with the computer equipment or at the test server itself or looking up the answers to such questions in a database or file by a configuration survey written in a high-level programming language or being in the form of a script; (b) automatically creating at least two files (206; 306; 406) based on the configuration information, the at least two files to coordinate testing of the computer equipment, comprising a kickstart file and a walkthrough file; wherein said walkthrough file provides instructions to a tester on how to conduct testing, which includes changing the configuration of the computer equipment and installing and/or reinstalling the software product and the test software to test various configurations, and wherein said walkthrough file provides instructions on which kickstart file to use in the boot process of the computer equipment; (c) performing a hardware test based on the walkthrough file and the kickstart file; (d) receiving results of the testing; and (e) making available the results of the testing and a description of the at least one configuration to enable verification of the compatibility of the computer equipment with the software product; characterized in that: the method further comprises applying a test credit to reduce the testing of the computer equipment, wherein to apply a test credit for a particular hardware option of the computer equipment, which has been detected during the gathering of the configuration information or the testing so that its specifics are now known, a model-configuration database is queried to determine if the same option was previously, successfully tested, or is to be tested elsewhere. (a) gathering configuration information about at least one configuration of the computer equipment on a test server or at the computer equipment by posing questions to a human tester at the computer equipment or at another computer system co-located with the computer equipment or at the test server itself or looking up the answers to such questions in a database or file by a configuration survey written in a high-level programming language or being in the form of a script; (b) automatically creating at least two files (206; 306; 406) based on the configuration information, the at least two files to coordinate testing of the computer equipment, comprising a kickstart file and a walkthrough file; wherein said walkthrough file provides instructions to a tester on how to conduct testing, which includes changing the configuration of the computer equipment and installing and/or reinstalling the software product and the test software to test various configurations, and wherein said walkthrough file provides instructions on which kickstart file to use in the boot process of the computer equipment; (c) performing a hardware test based on the walkthrough file and the kickstart file; (d) receiving results of the testing; and (e) making available the results of the testing and a description of the at least one configuration to enable verification of the compatibility of the computer equipment with the software product; characterized in that: the method further comprises applying a test credit to reduce the testing of the computer equipment, wherein to apply a test credit for a particular hardware option of the computer equipment, which has been detected during the gathering of the configuration information or the testing so that its specifics are now known, a model-configuration database is queried to determine if the same option was previously, successfully tested, or is to be tested elsewhere.