Building VS 2008 Projects on TFS 2005

Been through this issue and looked around for a solution but finally got it working by doing the following 2 steps:

• Copy your C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v8.0 to C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v9.0 as it is on the TFS Build Server
• Add the following imports to your Team Build
  <Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\MSBuildCommunityTasks\MSBuild.Community.Tasks.Targets"/>
• Add the following in your Team Build to let TFS 2005 Build Service be able to run the build using MSBuildCommunityTasks
  <Target Name="BeforeCompile">
  <Attrib Files="$(SolutionRoot)\GulfCapitalIntranet\GulfCapitalIntranet.sln" ReadOnly="false" Hidden="false" System="false" Normal="true" />
  <FileUpdate Files="$(SolutionRoot)\GulfCapitalIntranet\GulfCapitalIntranet.sln" Regex="Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 10.00" ReplacementText="Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 9.00" />
  </Target>

That's all what you need to be able to build your VS 2008 projects successfuly on TFS 2005.

Hope that helps

Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server MSSCCI Provider

The Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server MSSCCI Provider enables integrated use of Team Foundation Version Control with products that do not support Team Explorer integration. It is found on MS Download Center

This version (1.2) includes:

• Enable handling branched solutions in Visual Studio 2003.
• Fixed issues to enable provider to support Toad for SQL Server 2.0.
• Enhanced the "Choose Folder in Team Foundation Server" dialog.
• Fixed bug which prevented Properties Dialog from displaying local path.
• Work Items Query list in the Checkin Dialog is loaded and saved on the disk.
• "Get" operation performance improvements.
• Defect fixes

Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server Power Tools

Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server Power Tools is a set of enhancements, tools and command-line utilities that improve the Team Foundation Server user experience. It can be found on MSDN

New in this Release

• Find in Source Control tool is an addition to the Team Explorer menu that provides the ability to locate files and folders in source control by the item’s status or with a wildcard expression.
• Open a selected folder in Windows Explorer straight from Team Explorer. This feature allows you to jump straight to the mapped folder location from within Source Control Explorer.
• Quick Label feature that allows labels to be easily applied to a given selection of files and folders in the Source Control Explorer.
• Build Notification tool that runs in the Windows task bar notification area monitoring the status of the build definitions you have specified. It can be configured to show notifications when builds are queued, started, or completed for multiple build definitions spanning multiple Team Foundation Servers.
• Additional TFPT.EXE commands for configuring Team Explorer connection settings (tweakui) and for destroying Work Items and Work Items Type Definitions (destroyWI, destroyWITD).
• Updates to the TFS Best Practices Analyzer for use with a Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server deployment.
• The Process Template Editor is updated for use with Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server. It also has several improvements, including: the ability to launch standalone w/o a Visual Studio installation, performance improvements, improved discoverability and bug fixes.
• Bug fixes and removal of Power Tools that are now included within Team Foundation Server:
• Annotate and Treedif are now included in Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Explorer; however, Annotate remains is still available in the command-line tool (TFPT.EXE).
• TestToolsTask is included in Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server as part of Team Foundation Build.

Visual Studio Team System Web Access 2008 Power Tool

Visual Studio Team System Web Access 2008 Power Tool is available to download from MS Downloads

Team System Web Access is a free download that will be incorporated into a future release of Visual Studio Team System. You may install it with licensed installations of Team Foundation Server. You must be a licensed user of Team Foundation Server to access Team System Web Access.

Features

• NEW: Direct links to work items, query results, diffs, change sets and more
• NEW: Display custom controls on work item forms
• NEW: View queued builds new, queue new builds
• Add new work items or edit existing ones
• Work with any type of work item, including custom ones
• Add new work item queries or edit existing ones
• View, download, upload, check-in and check-out documents on SharePoint team portal
• View reports, export as PDF or Excel
• Browse source control repositories, download files, view changesets, diffs, histories, and annotated views
• View build results, start or stop builds
• Search for keywords in work items

Team Foundation Build 2008 New Features Video

There's a great new video on MSDN by Richard Hundhausen featuring the new features in Team Foundation Build 2008.

The video covers the major new features and provides a great introduction to the product.
How Do I: Learn the New Features and Capabilities of Team Foundation Build 2008?

In this video, Richard Hundhausen explores the new features and
capabilities of Team Foundation Build 2008, including defining and managing
build definitions, agents, qualities, and retention policies.
Presented by Richard Hundhausen on November 20, 2007
Length: 14 minutes 33 seconds

Rosario November CTP is now available

According to Jeff Beehler's

I'm happy to announce that the next Community Technology Preview of Rosario
(officially known as Microsoft® Visual Studio® Team System code name "Rosario"
November 2007 CTP) is now available. Customers can immediately begin
downloading the VPC images from our download page.

Download and check what's coming up next for Visual Studio Team System!

How to use solutions and projects between VS 2005 and VS 2008

Having two team members working on the same solution, one using VS2008 and the other using VS2005, what are the odds they can actually work together??

Once solutions are opened in VS2008 you'll not be able to open them back in VS2005 as the version number in the sln file is changed to 10.00, there's an obvious workaround of changing the version number back to 9.00 but this is not supported of course.

On the other hand projects opened in VS2008 and converted can still be opened in VS2005 (I actually tried it and it worked normally :):)) So the other workaround that you can use is to have separate Solution files, one for VS2008 and one for VS2005 with your projects added to them so that both team members can work normally.

Microsoft Silverlight 1.1 Tools Alpha for Visual Studio 2008

Microsoft Silverlight 1.1 Tools Alpha for Visual Studio 2008 is now available on MS Downloads

This package is an add-on to the RTM release of Visual Studio 2008 to provide tooling for Microsoft Silverlight 1.1 Alpha. It provides a Silverlight project system for developing Silverlight applications using C# or Visual Basic. The project system includes:

• Visual Basic and C# Project templates
• Intellisense and code generators for XAML
• Debugging of Silverlight applications
• Web reference support
• Integration with Expression Blend

TFS 2008 Power Tools

According to Brian Harry below is the TFS2008 Power Tools Plan.

The week of 11/26

VSTS Web Access - They released a CTP that is compatible with the TFS 2008 object model a couple of months ago. This build will continue to work against the TFS 2008 RTM. Next week they will release a "final" TFS 2008 compatible TSWA. In addition to the bug fixes done, it also includes:

• A set of easily accessible urls to various information - work items, queries, file history, etc. for easy linking from other applications
• New custom control samples
• More efficient memory management
• Documentation
• And they are now set up to start producing localized versions (although they will come out over the next couple of months).

Mid December
MSSCCI Provider - They've updated the MSSCCI provider (that enables TFS access from VS 2003, VS 2002, VS 6 and a host of other IDEs) to use the TFS 2008 object model. In the process they've fixed as many bugs that have been reported as they could. The updated MSSCCI provider will be available in Mid-Dec.

TFS Power Tools - The main TFS Power tools package will be released in mid-Dec. They are currently shooting for the week of the 17th. It will be compiled against the new TFS 2008 object model and all of the VS addins will work against the VS 2008 IDE.
Note, the add-ins will not work against the VS 2005 IDE - in September, they shipped the final version of the Power Tools that target VS 2005.
From here forward, all Power Tool releases will target the VS 2008 client or later. Of course, keeping consistent with our TFS 2008 compatibility goals, the old and the new Power Tools will both work against either a TFS 2005 or a TFS 2008 server. So you can continue to use the Power Tools that are compatible with your IDE against whatever version of the server that you have.
In addition to VS 2008 IDE compatibility, this new Power Tool release includes:

• Build Notification Tray app - They're releasing their first Power Tool version of the build notification tray app. This tool allows you to monitor the current status of automated builds easily. You can be notified immediately when a build fails (or succeeds even) so that you can address it promptly.
• Process Template Editor - They've made bug fixes and small improvements to the Process Template Editor that include:
  - Making it more discoverable by moving it to the VS Tools menu
  - Substantially improved the performance - particularly when there are many states
  - Fixes for all of the serious bugs that users have reported.
• Best Practices Analyzer - The Best Practices Analyzer is a tool we first released in September that is designed to help diagnose problems with TFS installation and help you quickly correct them. In this Power Tools release, we have updated it to support TFS 2008 and the wide array of addition configurations that TFS 2008 supports.
• WI & WIT Destroy - We have added support to the tfpt command line to enable permanent deletion of work items and work item types. We added server side support for it in TFS 2008 but did not have time to get the client side support done. So until that makes it into an official release, that support will live in the Power Tools.
  

Tips for upgrading from TFS2005 to TFS2008

Grant Holliday posted a Tips for Upgrading TFS 2005 to TFS 2008 article that I find very interesting.

Hopefully will try it this week max early next week.

Steps to Uninstall VS 2008 Beta2 before installing the VS 2008 Final Release

Below is the complete list of potential Beta2 components to uninstall in a recommended uninstall order:

• Remove "MSDN Library for Visual Studio 2008 Beta"
• Remove "Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition 3.5"
• Remove "Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition 3.5 Design Tools"
• Remove "Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition 3.5 for Devices"
• Remove "Microsoft Visual Studio Performance Collection Tools"
• Remove "Windows Mobile 5.0 SDK R2 for Pocket PC"
• Remove "Windows Mobile 5.0 SDK R2 for Smartphone"
• Remove "Crystal Reports 2007"
• Remove "Visual Studio Asset System"
• Remove "Microsoft Visual Studio Web Authoring Component / Microsoft Web Designer Tools"
• Remove "Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the 2007 Microsoft Office System Runtime"
• Remove "Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the 2007 Microsoft Office System
• Runtime Language Pack" (non-English editions only)
• Remove "Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Office Runtime 3.0"
• Remove "Microsoft Document Explorer"
• Remove "Microsoft Document Explorer 2005 Language Pack" (non-English editions only)
• Remove "Microsoft Device Emulator 3.0"
• Remove "Microsoft .NET Compact Framework 3.5"
• Remove "Microsoft .NET Compact Framework 2.0 SP1"
• Remove ".NET Framework 2.0 SDK"
• Remove "Microsoft Visual Studio Codename Orcas Remote Debugger"
• Remove "Microsoft Visual Studio 64bit Prerequisites Beta" (64-bit platforms only)
• Remove "Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5"
  

After finish uninstalling any/all of the above items, it's recommend to reboot prior to installing the final VS 2008 and .NET 3.5 release to make sure there is no setup state still on the machine.

Make sure to post in the Visual Studio 2008 Setup and Installation Forum on MSDN in case you run into any installing/uninstalling issues.

TFS 2008 System Recommendations

Just came across a great post by Brian Harry about TFS 2008 System Recommendations.

We have just completed our testing for TFS 2008 scalability and are ready
to publish the final recommendations on server sizing and hardware
configurations. If you want to compare this to the TFS 2005
recommendations, you will find them here.

Team Explorer 2008 Standalone Available

For those in need to install Team Explorer 2008 only, there's a separate download available on MS Download: Download Visual Studio Team Explorer 2008

Having Team Explorer doesn't alleviate the need to also have a TFS Client Access License (CAL) except when using TFS Workgroup (5 user limit), accessing Codeplex or when only filing a bug.

MSDN Virtual Lab: Building Web Applications with Visual Studio 2008

MSDN Virtual Lab: Building Web Applications with Visual Studio 2008 is available on MSDN Virtual Labs here.

In this lab you will use the powerful new CSS editor in Visual Studio 2008 to
manage styles sheets in web pages. You will also try out other new tools like
the new DataPager control and the new LINQ Data Source.

Visual Studio 2008 SDK 1.0 Released

Visual Studio 2008 SDK 1.0 is released.

It is the official software development kit that allows developers to integrate tools, editors, designers, languages, and other features inside Visual Studio 2008. Key features in the VS 2008 SDK include:

• Visual Studio Shell development support
• Enhancements in Domain-specific Language tools
• Visual Studio Package development and testing support for C++, C# and Visual Basic
• Code samples and documentation covering toolbox controls integration, general IDE integration, Domain-specific Languages (DSL), Team Foundation Server extensibility, Data Designers extensibility , and other areas
• Support for Windows Vista

For more information and news about VSX (Visual Studio Extensibility), visit the VSX Developer center at http://msdn.com/vsx and the VSX Team Blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/vsxteam.

What's New in Visual Studio 2008

Adam Gallant posted a long yet amazing post from the new product guide including what's new in Visual Studio 2008 including all the product pieces and editions.

Check the post here

Visual Studio 2008 Training Kit

Visual Studio 2008 Training Kit is available on Microsoft Download Center

The Training Kit includes presentations, hands-on labs, and demos.

This content is designed to help learn how to utilize the Visual Studio 2008 features and a variety of framework technologies including: LINQ, C# 3.0, Visual Basic 9, WCF, WF, WPF, ASP.NET AJAX, VSTO, CardSpace, SilverLight, Mobile and Application Lifecycle Management.

Visual Studio 2008 RTM Released on MSDN

Visual Studio 2008 is now available for MSDN Subscribers to Download.

.NET Framework 3.5 Common Namespaces and Types Poster

The .NET Framework 3.5 Common Namespaces and Types Poster is now downloadable as XPS or PDF format on Microsoft Download Center.

There is also an XPS format file which prints over 16 letter or A4 pages for easy printing.

Visual Studio 2008 RTM this November!!

Finally the long waited Visual Studio 2008 will be Released to Manufacturing at the end of this November as announced today by Microsoft.

Horray !!

TFS Build Lab 1.0 Released

TFSBuildLab 1.0 is released on CodePlex, it is a project to simplify the day to day operations when using automated builds on TFS.

This project handles common Team System issues such as:

• Continuous integration builds
• Scheduled builds
• Build queueing
• Event notifications
• Manual and automated build cleanup

Below is a list of 1.0 features

Service

• Automatic rescheduling when adding new scheduled trigger.
• A report for displaying statistics from the triggers and retention policies.
• Support for overriding build script parameters both for CI and queued builds.
• Support for only deleting the build drops.
• Support for configuring retention policies based on build quality.
• Performance improvements by introducing caching

Admin Client

• Added feedback when delteing multiple builds.
• Support for forcing recaching on the server.
• Support for overriding build script parameters on queued builds.
• Support for overriding build script parameters on triggers.
• Added range paramters when listing log entries to limit the result data.

Checkin Policies

• Removed the need for TfsBuildLab when using the restricted paths policy.

Build Task

• New custom build task to use overloaded parameters (LoadOverriddenProperty)

Many of these issues are handled in the upcoming TFS release, but they wanted to have a good implementation until then and was also aiming to be as forward-compatible as possible.

TFS to TFS Migration Tool Pre-Release Available on CodePlex!

Back in June the TFS Migration and Synchronization Toolkit was released, the toolkit helps migrating data between 3rd party version control and bug tracking systems and TFS.

Having multiple locations and on site development arose the idea of having a TFS to TFS tool as well, so work was begun on writing a TFS to TFS migration tool based on the toolkit.

A pre-release of this TFS to TFS Migration Tool is now available on CodePlex!

This tool enables migration of work items and version control items with history between TFS servers. To learn more about the tool, you can visit the TFS to TFS Migration Tool page on CodePlex.

The purpose of this pre-release is for testing and stabilizing of the tool before officially releasing the tool.

Patterns & Practices: Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications

Patterns & Practices: Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications is now available on MSDN.

Contents
Landing Page
Foreword By Alberto Savoia
Foreword By Rico Mariani
Introduction
Chapters
Chapter 1 – Fundamentals of Web Application Performance Testing
Chapter 2 – Types of Performance Testing
Chapter 3 – Risks Addressed Through Performance Testing
Chapter 4 – Web Application Performance Testing Core Activities
Chapter 5 – Coordinating Performance Testing with an Iteration-Based Process
Chapter 6 – Managing an Agile Performance Test Cycle
Chapter 7 – Managing the Performance Test Cycle in a Regulated (CMMI) Environment
Chapter 8 – Evaluating Systems to Increase Performance-Testing Effectiveness
Chapter 9 – Determining Performance Testing Objectives
Chapter 10 – Quantifying End-User Response Time Goals
Chapter 11 – Consolidating Various Types of Performance Acceptance Criteria
Chapter 12 – Modeling Application Usage
Chapter 13 – Determining Individual User Data and Variances
Chapter 14 – Test Execution
Chapter 15 – Key Mathematic Principles for Performance Testers
Chapter 16 – Performance Test Reporting Fundamentals
Chapter 17 – Load-Testing Web Applications
Chapter 18 – Stress-Testing Web Applications

This guide was produced by the following Team

• J.D. Meier, Microsoft, Senior Program Manager, patterns & practices
• Carlos Farre, Microsoft, Software Design Engineer Test, patterns & practices
• Prashant Bansode, Infosys Technologies Ltd
• Scott Barber, PerfTestPlus Inc, Chief Technologist
• Dennis Rea, Wadeware LLC

Microsoft Tester Center

Microsoft launched their Tester Center that can be found on MSDN.

The Microsoft Tester Center showcases the test discipline as an integral
part of the application lifecycle, describes test roles and responsibilities,
and promotes the test investments required to deliver high-quality
software.

VSTS Resource Center

Deitel.com just launched a Visual Studio Team System Resource Center.

In the Resource Center you'll find:

• The Microsoft Visual Studio Team System site where you’ll find product information, solutions, technical information, community resources, news, downloads, support, power tools, developer features, team system blogs, RSS feeds and more.
• Information about Visual Studio Team System 2008—the latest version of VSTS.
• Visual Studio Team System 2008 downloads including Visual Studio Team System, Test Load Agent, Team Suite, Team Foundation Server, and the Power Tool Community Technology Preview.
• The Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Installation Guide.
• The video, "Overview of Visual Studio Team Developer: Writing Maintainable and Robust Applications with Microsoft Studio Team System," presented at TechEd 2007 by Noah Coad.
• "Comparing Visual Studio Team System Editions," from Vertigo Software.
• The sample chapter, "Introducing Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System," from Pro Visual Studio 2005 Team System: Application Design, by Steve Shrimpton.
• "Managing a Project With Visual Studio Team System," by Peter Varhol.
• The blog, "Software Engineering with Visual Studio Team System," by Sam Guckenheimer (a software engineer with the Microsoft Visual Studio Team System).
• The sample chapter, "Overview of Team System," from Working with Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005 Team System, by Richard Hundhausen.
• Visual Studio Team System video tutorials from Microsoft.
• Visual Studio Team System books, blogs, conferences, FAQs, training, forums and newsgroups.
• ...And more.

VS 2005 TFS Power Tools Updated

Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server Power Tools is a set of enhancements, tools and command-line utilities that improve the Team Foundation Server user experience.

This release includes everything from the previous Power Tools release and includes two great new tools, the Team Foundation Server Best Practices Analyzer and Work Item Templates.

Team Foundation Server Best Practices Analyzer
This release of the Team Foundation Power Tools includes the first release of the Team Foundation Server Best Practices Analyzer (Team Foundation Server BPA).

The Team Foundation Server BPA is a diagnostic tool that performs the following functions:

• Gathers configuration information from a Team Foundation Server deployment
• Performs specific tests on the Team Foundation Server deployment
• Analyzes the collected information according to specific rules and reports the findings as information, warning, or error messages
• Provides links to articles to resolve warning and error messages

You can use the Team Foundation Server BPA in either a pre-installation or a production Team Foundation Server environment. You can use the Team Foundation Server BPA to perform the following tasks:

• Proactively verify that the Team Foundation Server configuration is set according to recommended best practices
• Determine configurations that differ from default, recommended, or required settings
  Identify the source of problems in an unhealthy Team Foundation Server deployment

Work Item Templates
Team Foundation Power Tools installs a Work Item Templates feature that supports the ability to create, apply, capture, and set default work item templates. This feature adds additional menu items to the Team Work Item Templates menu.

You use work item templates to create or update work items. Work item templates automatically set field values. This feature conveniently reduces the number of steps to create or update work items. For example, you can create a task template that will set the area path, iteration path, and discipline whenever you use it to create or edit a task.

VSTS Web Access for TFS 2008 Updated

MS released a new version of VSTS Web Access.

This release is a Community Technology Preview (CTP) of what will ultimately be the 2008 version of the VSTS Web Access Power Tool.

This release (and the final 2008 release) can be used with either a TFS 2005 or a TFS 2008 server. In either case, you will need to install a TFS 2008 Team Explorer on the machine you install Web Access on.

Since TFS 2005 did not support build queuing, that functionality will not be available when this and future versions of Web Access are used with a 2005 server.

The only things left to do for the Final Web Access Power Tool release for VSTS 2008 are publishing some documentation, producing the localized builds and going through the final release process. The final version will be released about the same time VSTS 2008 is released.

The big advances in this update include:

• Built against the TFS 2008 object model - In previous versions of Web Access you had to install Team Explorer 2005 on any machine you were installing Web Access on. With this version, you will now be installing Team Explorer 2008 instead. In some future version, we hope to remove the requirement to install any version of Team Explorer.
• Custom control support - We've added support for web based work item custom controls and have included a folder of documentation and samples on how to create them.
• Build queuing - We added UI for the new TFS 2008 feature of build queuing. You can start new queued builds and view the build queue (in addition to the preexisting abilities - like viewing build details).
• Localization support - We've added support for localizing the web interface and are preparing to hand off our text to the localization team so they can begin preparing localized versions for the final 2008 Power Tool release.
• Bug fixes & Performance improvements - We've received a number of reports and done more testing ourselves on the last version of the Power Tool that we shipped and we have fixed everything we know of.

VSTS for DB Professionals SR1 Power Tools

VSTS for DB Professionals SR1 Power Tools is now available on MS

The Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals Power Tools is a set of enhancements and tools that compliment and improve the user experience of Team Edition for Database Professionals

This release includes 5 new refactoring types, a new dependency viewer, additional data generators and editors, 2 new MSBuild tasks for Schema and Data Compare as well as the introduction of the TSQL Static Code Analysis feature

TSQL Static Code Analysis

• Static Code Analysis - A precursor to the functionality that will be in future versions of VSTS that will allow you to perform Static Code Analysis on T-SQL code.

Refactoring

• “Move Schema” Refactoring - Allows a user to right click on an object and move it to a different but existing schema
• SP Rename Generation - Generate a new script that will contain sp_renames for all rename refactored objects that the user can then execute.
• Wildcard Expansion - Automatically expand the wildcard in a select to the appropriate columns.
• Fully-Qualified Name Support - Automatically inject fully-qualified names when absent in a script
• Refactoring extended to Dataset - Refactor into strongly typed dataset definitions

MSBuild Tasks

• Data / Schema Compare Build Tasks - MSBuild tasks that can generate scripts as if the user had run the Data / Schema compare UI

Schema View

• API Access to Schema View - Insert / Update / Delete to schema View and list schema objects and their associated files

Dependency Tool Window

• Dependency Tree - Show the dependencies ( incoming / outgoing ) for selected schema objects in a new tool window

Miscellaneous Tools

• Script Preprocessor - Expand SQLCMD variables and include files and command line version (sqlspp.exe) & an MSBuild version ( wraps the command line version )

New Videos on ASP.NET for VSTS

Visual Studio Team System provides many ways for developers to extend the application build process, and in these videos they demonstrate how to automate builds, automate tests, and automate deployments.

• How Do I:Implement Continuous Integration with Team Foundation? (6 minutes, 25 seconds)
• How Do I:Automate Testing using Team Build? (6 minutes, 25 seconds)
• How Do I:Deploy a Web Application during a Team Build? (5 minutes, 50 seconds)

Team System Web Access Power Tool Available!

Team System Web Access Power Tool is released the as the first "official" power tool release of Team System Web Access. It can be downloaded from here.

When Microsoft first acquired DevBiz, they provided v1.0 of TeamPlain for download. Based on customer demand, they uploaded a preview of TeamPlain 2.0. Neither were supported by Microsoft customer support but both were available for download by all TFS licensed users.

With the release of the Team System Web Access Power Tool, several things have changed.

This version is based on the TeamPlain 2.0 code base but a great deal of work has gone into it since March.

Although, it is still not yet an officially released Microsoft product it has taken some great strides, including:

• Microsoft Customer Support Services will now support it.
• The code has been run through the Microsoft release process which is an extensive gauntlet of checks that help ensure quality. Among the more important ones is a security review to make sure the code is not susceptible to attack.
• MS have tested it to a moderate degree (including internally dogfooding it for a couple of months).
• It contains numerous bug fixes beyond what was in the last available download. Some notable ones include:
• Because of dogfooding they have made substantial additional performance improvements - particularly on first page load and work item load and save.
• They have re-branded it as Microsoft Visual Studio Team System Web Access
• They have improved some of the graphics and visuals.
• They removed all of the old licensing code that required separate keys to be entered.
• Improved error logging and added Dr. Watson support so reports of any crashes you experience can be sent to MS for investigation.

It also includes most of the features originally on the TeamPlain 2.0 feature list, including:

General Improvements

• Better, faster and easier with the new Ajax user interface
• Dramatic performance improvements for large team projects with a lot of work items, queries, area paths, and people
• Theme support for the user interface (and a new Olive theme)
• Manage alerts, subscribe to custom alerts
• Home page customizations
• Many dialogs open in their own window now, such as the work item editor, report viewer, file viewer and build results

Work Item Tracking

• Ajax style design to avoid page reloads and to provide live feedback about the status of the work items
• Work item type icons
• Context sensitive menus for work items
• Improved web controls to handle large datasets better
• Improved query editor with grouping
• Edit multiple work items at once (bulk editing)
• Add related work item
• Create copy of a work item
• Send work items and query results as email
• Copy queries between team projects

Build

• There is a new "Build" tab in this release, allowing to manage team builds.
• View the list of builds, and apply filters
• Start a new build
• Monitor build progress live
• View build logs, errors or warnings
• Stop running builds
• Delete a build
• Change the quality of a build

Source Control

• Faster browsing
• Visual Diff for text files
• Annotate (a.k.a. Blame)
• Download the latest or a previous version of a file

WSS 3.0 Integration for TFS V1 Guidance Updated

The Guidance For TFS V1 integration with WSS 3.0 was updated on TechNotes Site

• TN1501: Configuring Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on the Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server Application Tier
• TN1502: Configuring Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on a Remote Server to work with Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server

Hope that helps ...

Service Release 1 (SR1) Update for Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals has shipped

SR1 update for VSTS for Database Professionals is now released and available on Microsoft

This service release addresses the top issues that were found through feedback from customers and partners.

This release includes the following features:

• Cross-database references
  Support is improved to enable you to reference objects in different databases by using database project references or referencing a database metafile (.dbmeta). This support will reduce or eliminate the cross database reference warnings within a database project.
• Improved file support within SQL Server file groups
  You may define files within file groups as database project properties instead of having to create files and file groups within the pre-deployment storage script.
• Variables
  A Variables page is added to the database properties. This new page enables you to define setvar variables for use in the deployment scripts. Additionally, SR1 supports the latest service pack release from Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (SP2). The SR1 also supports the Windows Vista operating system.

Patterns & Practices: VSTS Process Support

Patterns & Practices: VSTS Process Support is now available on CodePlex

Patterns & Practices: VSTS Process Support is a collection of tools, samples and guidance related to Visual Studio Team Foundation Server Process Templates. We’ll share artifacts from early development cycles with you and would like to get feedback so we can improve our products.

Patterns & Practices: Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications

Patterns & Practices: Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications is now available on CodePlex

This guide shows you an end-to-end approach for implementing performance
testing. Whether you are new to performance testing, or looking for ways to
improve your current performance testing approach, you will find insights that
you can tailor for your specific scenarios.

TFS Migration and Synchronization Toolkit

V1.0 of the Migration and Synchronization Toolkit has been released on CodePlex !!

The purpose of the TFS Migration and Synchronization Toolkit is to enable customers of Team Foundation Server (TFS) to build custom tools that enable migration and synchronization with other version control (VC) and work-item tracking (WIT) systems. Customers have asked us for this toolkit to help them integrate TFS into their existing development environments. Please give it a try and let us know what you think.

Extending Load Testing Browser Support

The browser support Out Of The Box for Team Edition for Testers is minimal.

But, it can be extended by adding your own browsers (common ones you'll probably want to add are IE7, Firefox and Opera).

The configuration files for the browser types are stored in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE\Templates\LoadTest\Browsers.

The files end in the extension ".browser". These files simply contain the header information a browser sends with a request.

If you aren't sure of what information to enter in this file, simply open up your favorite browser that isn't in the list and go to http://www.ranks.nl/tools/envtest.html and grab the appropriate values!

Use the IE6.browser file as a template. For example, if you wanted to add support to test Opera you might add the following and save it as Opera.browser:

<Browser Name="Opera 8.0">
<Headers>
<Header Name="User-Agent" Value="Opera/8.00+(Windows+NT+5.1;+U;+en)" />
<Header Name="Accept" Value="text/html, image/jpeg, image/gif, image/x-bitmap, */*" />
<Header Name="Accept-Language" Value="en" />
<Header Name="Accept-Encoding" Value="GZIP" />
</Headers>
</Browser>

There are obviously other values you can place here and some of this will be dependent on your locale, plug-ins you have loaded and other environmental factors. Once you save this file, you should be able to go in and create a new load test and Opera 8.0 will now show up as an option in your browser mix list.

Project Server 2007 - TFS Connector

The Project Server 2007 - TFS Connector has been released on CodePlex.

The Visual Studio Team System Project Server 2007 Connector is designed to integrate the project management capabilities of VSTS with Project Server 2007.
It's been developed by the Visual Studio Team System Rangers in response to significant customer demand for a connector solution. Future versions of Team System will have native integration with Project Server, in the meantime this Connector solution is the best way to integrate the two Microsoft products.

Patterns & Practices Team Development with TFS Guide

Patterns & Practices Team Development with TFS Guide Beta 1 is release on CodePlex

This guide shows you how to make the most of Team Foundation Server. It starts with the end in mind, but shows you how to incrementally adopt TFS for your organization. It's a collaborative effort between patterns & practices, Team System team members, and industry experts.

TFS - Project Server 2007 on CodePlex

TFS - Project Server 2007 Connector is now finally available on CodePlex

The Visual Studio Team System Project Server 2007 Connector is designed to integrate the project management capabilities of VSTS with Project Server 2007.
It's been developed by the Visual Studio Team System Rangers in response to significant customer demand for a connector solution. Future versions of Team
System will have native integration with Project Server, in the meantime this Connector solution is the best way to integrate the two Microsoft products. This solution builds on the previous PS2003 VSTS Connector, published on GotDotNet. This solution is intended to provide guidance, provided as source code that can be sed "as is," extended, or modified by developers to use on enterprise development projects.

VSTS for DB Professionals SP1 Pre-release

The DataDude team, aka the team that develops Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals, has just published a preview of their first service release.

It's not just bug fixes, they've included a number of new features:

• 3+4 part name resolution through a new feature called "database references"
• File groups and files are now part of the project settings and can e fully parameterize then to fit your deployment needs (this replaces the need for the storage deployment script)
• SQLCMD variable support; this is enable through a new project property page for creating and editing variables that you can then use inside your scripts. Variables are stored inside the project file and can be mapped to MSBuild properties.

More details will be coming soon, but in the meantime check it out.

TFS Cube ... Uncovered !!

Jimmy Li has posted the most amazing TFS Cube related post I ever found ... Great job Jimmy ... It's a bless :)

The post covers complete understanding of TFS Cube inside out with screenshots, demos and tips on how to use it best. It can be checked out here, he promised he'll give more so keep an eye on it !! Enjoy ...

The initial learning curve for the TFS Cube is pretty steep. It is quite overwhelming to figure out the relationships between the large number of dimensions and measure groups in the TFS cube at first. In this blog entry I will explain some of the most commonly used perspectives and show how you can easily create Excel reports from them.

TFS Reporting Simplified using TFS Data Source Control

Kannan wrote two great posts on how to create a TFS Data Source Control and how to create a TFS Report leveraging the use of this control.

You can check the posts on the following links:

• TFS Data Source ASP.NET Control
• TFS Reporting Simplified

VS2005 Template for TFS Events Listening...

I've been trying to create my own TFS listening events and it was really a bit hard, until I came across Howard van Rooijen's VS2005 Template

It'll create the listner web services for TFS events, along with the appropriate signatures, as well as convert the events to an object, so that you can effectively use it.

Don't miss it ...

TFS V1 Integration to WSS 3.0 Revisited !

It was officially announced that TFS V1 will not support WSS 3.0 awhile ago and I had my own post on that, but since countless requests are being sent to MS for having that solved before Orcas' release, they managed to have that working using a great group of MCS consultants and VSTS team members that did much of the leg work to flesh out the solution and test it thoroughly

It's still not an easy process and it still involves some unusual steps but it can be checked out on http://blogs.msdn.com/briankel/archive/2007/04/14/Configuring-Visual-Studio-2005-Team-Foundation-Server-with-Windows-SharePoint-Services-3.0.aspx till it's officially released. It's still a "Pre-Release" so it's own your own risk still :)

Team Foundation Source Control Guidelines ...

Team Foundation Source Control Guidelines are now available. It can be read online in HTNL or downloaded in PDF format.

The guidelines are part of the patterns & practices - Visual Studio Team System Guidance Project on CodePlex.

It can be used to encapsulate strategies and convey recommendations.
Each guideline is written using a "What to do", "Why" and "How" approach to help make them easy to consume.

Deleting Team Builds ...

Been trying to remove some Testing Build Types that I created while playing with Team Build and got really lost, so I thought it might be helpful for playing geeks like me :)

Actually it's very easy ... All you have to do is go to Source Control Explorer, Get latest from the TeamBuildsTypes Project, remove those Builds you no longer need, and then Check in them back again ... Voila :)

Same applies to Editing Team Build types ... you have to check them out first ...

Hope that was helpful ...

VSTS Guidance ...

Visual Studi Team System Guidance is now available on CodePlex

The purpose of this project is to build some insightful and practical guidance around using Microsoft Visual Studio Team System. It's a collaborative effort between patterns & practices, Team System team members, and industry experts.

VSTS Future Releases ...

Microsoft released their roadmap for Team System and Team Foundation Server on MSDN.

Check it to see the many additions planned for VSTS and TFS, which target architects, developers, testers, and database professionals (in addition, of course, to project managers).

TeamPlain is now Free for TFS Customers!!

As part of an acquisition made by Microsoft over devBix, TeamPlain is now free for TFS Customers. It can be downloaded here.

Check the PressPass.

Thanks Microsoft for the great addition ...

TeamPlain Web Access is a web interface for Microsoft® Team Foundation
Server that allows managing work items, shared documents, reports and source control repositories.

• Streamlines Team System usage
• Enables broader participation to development lifecycle
• Allows cross platform access to Team Foundation Server (TFS)
• Enables fine grained security configurations not present in TFS
• Helps organizations to leverage their Team System migration and adoptation

TFS Branching Guidance ...

TFS Branching Guidance is now available on CodePlex

The purpose of this project is to build some insightful and practical guidance around doing branching and merging using Team Foundation Server. It's a collaborative effort between industry experts, Microsoft Services, patterns & practices, and VSTS team members.

Work Item Tracking ...

Brian A. Randel just published a great article on Work Item Tracking. It can be found on MSDN VS2005 Technical Articles

The Work Item Tracking subsystem offered by Team Foundation Server exposes a rich object model for integration with your own solutions. Accessing work item information from any application only requires a few lines of code. In addition, when building an application, you can let the built-in controls do the heavy lifting to provide a rich and consistent interface. In the next column, I'll show you how to integrate work item support into the add-in that I started in the previous column.

Performance Testing Guidance

Patterns & Practices: Performance Testing Guidance is now available on CodePlex.

The purpose of this project is to build some insightful and practical guidance around doing performance testing and using Visual Studio 2005.

It's a collaborative effort between industry experts, Microsoft ACE, Patterns & Practices, Premier, and VSTS team members.

Usage Scenarios:

• Improve efficiency and effectiveness of your performance testing
• Learn expert techniques performance testing
• Apply expert techniques for performance testing using Visual Studio.NET 2005

Database Unit Testing with VSTS for DB Professionals

Sachin Rekhi just published his detailed whitepaper on Database Unit Testing.

It can be found on MSDN VS2005 Technical Articles

Summary: Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals is the first toolset to deliver a comprehensive framework for performing database unit tests. This product brings to the data community the same first-class capabilities for performing unit tests that many application developers enjoy today. This paper explains exactly what database unit testing is, shows you how to develop database unit tests by using the framework, and walks you through how to leverage its rich capabilities to develop an effective strategy for performing database unit tests inside your organization.

Viewing Other Users' Pending Changes in VS

You can always view other users' Pending Changes by Running "tf status /user:* $/ /r" but it's not that neat and appealing to everyone.

Ekobit released a new free VS Add-In that allows you to directly see other users' Pending Changes from withing VS2005.

Check it out!!

Using the List Pending Changes browser is relatively simple. You can access
the browser from the View menu -> Other Windows -> List Pending Changes
menu item. In order to list checked out files you must fill out the Path input
field. Path input field represents the root of your search and it must be in
Visual Studio Team System source control path format (example: $/MyProject).
Beside entering the path manualy you may use the Path field as a combo box and
select the path from the given list of paths.

TFS Work Item Management Outlook Addin

The SRL Team has released an Addin for MS Outlook that connects to TFS.

You can generate a Work Item right from MS Outlook. You can view queries, you can search your work items, you can even generate a work item based on content from an email.

Subject can be mapped to task title, body to description, or any field can by mapped to anything else.

Customising TFS Builds with MSBuild Tasks

I just came acrossa great help for customizing TFS Builds, The MSBuild Community Tasks Project which is an open source project for MSBuild tasks. The goal of the project is to provide a collection of open source tasks for MSBuild.

VSTS Add In - Search Work Items

Finally a great Add In that provides keyword search to be searched across all fields in all workitems.

The tool does the search whil giving thought on performance impact and providing a template to reduce such impact.

Check the Search Work Items Add In on Noah Coad's Blog post.

Visual Studio 4.0 SDK is Now Available Including Updates to TFS Extensibility Documentation

The Visual Studio 4.0 SDK was released early March '07.

On behalf of the VS Tools Ecosystem team, we are pleased to announce that after months of hard work, we have completed shipping the VS SDK 4.0 RTM release! We have done tons of work to make this release friendly to developers who are new to Visual Studio extensibility. It is available for immediate download on the Microsoft Download Center.

We are excited to present some of the new features included in this release:

• VS SDK Browser – the new entry-point to the entire SDK; includes new QuickStart Tutorials and a completely revamped sample browsing experience
• Package Load Analyzer – allows developers to easily debug package load failures
• Toolbox Installer redistributable package – allows component vendors that simplifies deployment, along with sample
• TFS Contents – new and updated TFS samples and documentation
• Sandcastle – new set of tools for generating managed class library documentation (Sandcastle)
• Updated Setup experience
• And much more!

Here's what's new in it for TFS in particular.
Team Foundation Server Extensibility

• New Work Item Custom Control API Sample and Help Documentation
• Demonstrates how to use the Work Item Custom Control APIs introduced in Visual Studio 2005 SP1.
• New Version Control Merge History API Documentation
• Demonstrates how to use the enhanced QueryMergesWithDetails API introduced in Visual Studio 2005 SP1.
• Updated Team Explorer PcwTESample
• This sample can be found in \VisualStudioTeamSystemIntegration\Team Explorer and Project Creation\PcwTESample\.
• Fixed problems that prevented the sample from building.
• Updated Team Foundation Server Collectibles Sample
• This sample can be found in \VisualStudioTeamSystemIntegration\Team Foundation Core Services\ExtendingTeamFoundationSample\.
• Re-written to use best practices.
• Updated ReadMe.doc to reflect new architecture.
• All Team Foundation Server Pubic Assemblies Updated to Visual Studio 2005 SP1
• These assemblies can be found in \VisualStudioIntegration\Common\Assemblies\.
• Updated Team Foundation Server BisSubscribe.exe Tool
• This tool was updated to the RTM version and can be found in \VisualStudioTeamSystemIntegration\Utilities\EventSubscriptionTool\.
• The SDK version of this tool now provides unsubscribe capability.
• Added Visual Studio Team Explorer Package GUID’s, Menu ID’s and Group ID’s Header Files
• The newly provided header file contains the constants required for integrating with existing Team Explorer shortcut menus when you create Visual Studio Integration Package projects. The TFS_VC_IDs.h file can be found in \VisualStudioTeamSystemIntegration\Version Control\ and the TFS_WIT_IDs.h file can be found in \VisualStudioTeamSystemIntegration\Work Item Tracking\.

VS2005 SP1 Vista Update Now Available

VS2005 SP1 update for Vista is now available on download center.

You can download the update from Microsoft Downloads.

You've to apply VS2005 SP1 before applying this update on Vista.

TFS Migration Toolkit Specs Published

If you are interested in writing version control or work item tracking conversion tools, be sure to check it out the TFS Migration Toolkit Specs that has been just published and give them your feedback.

TFS Event Subscription Tool

The Team Alerts dialog lets you subscribe to basic email alerts on a Team Project such as:

• My work items are changed by others.
• Anything is checked in.
• A build status changes.
• A build completes

But the dialog is severely limited; the full richness of the email subscription mechanism in TFS isn't available. To set up advanced subscriptions, you needed to use bissubscribe.exe.

This is problematic, because the command-line syntax is complicated, and also because bissubscribe.exe is only available on the TF Server.

To address this deficiency Naren posted a GUI tool that lets you create Work Item Event Subscriptions in July 2006. The tool was modified later by jatwood so that it supports all event subscriptions, along with a bunch of other enhancements The new Team Foundation Server Event Subscription Tool is up on CodePlex now.

Some examples of subscriptions you might want to create are:

• Email me when any new work item is created.
• Email me when any work item moves to the resolved state.
• Email we when a specific field changes in a work item.
• Email me when someone checks source code into a specific folder.
• Email me when someone overrides a checkin policy.

TFS Guidance Whitepaper

Willy-Peter Schaub, a Team System MVP, has posted a Team Foundation Server Guidance White Paper summarizing good practices used in the field. Check it out.

TFS Power Tools Video

Ed Hintz, development lead on the TFS team, gave a demo of the newly released Team Foundation Server Power Tools v1.2.

Ed demonstrates a new tool for monitoring the status and uptime of TFS as well as a new Process Template Editor for visually customizing work item forms, workflow, and more.

The video is available on Channel 9

Analyzing Application Performance

Performance tools in VSTS for Developers allow developers to measure, evaluate, and target performance-related issues in their code. These tools are fully integrated into the IDE to provide a seamless and approachable user experience. The performance tools support two methods of profiling: sampling and instrumentation.

You can check all the needed info about the Performance Tools on MSDN.

TFS Power Tool - Feb 2007

The Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server Power Tool (formerly known as Power Toys) is a set of enhancements, tools and command line utilities that improve the Team Foundation Server user experience.

This release includes two new command-line tools for the developer and three non-command line tools: a set of custom check-in policies, a build test task, and a process template editor. This version (1.2) includes some bug fixes to the Team Foundation Power Tool and adds the following functionality:

• Workspace Command (tfpt.exe) - Use the workspace command for additional workspace operations not supported in the currently shipping Team Foundation Server command line (tf.exe).
• Treeclean Command (tfpt.exe) - Use the treeclean command to see and optionally delete files in the current directory and all sub directories that are not under version control.
• Team System Process Editor - A tool integrated with Visual Studio that provides a convenient method of viewing and customizing process templates. When connected to Team Foundation Server, you can use this tool to customize work item type definitions and global lists on an active project.
• Check-in Policy Pack - A set of handy check-in policies to address needs customers have expressed.
• Build Test Tools Task - A tool that allows running unit tests by simply specifying the DLLs, or by specifying a file name pattern in TfsBuild.proj, instead of using .vsmdi files to specify tests to run.

A great addition to TFS. The Process Editor is really a great addition, you can check it's Forums here.

TFS SP1 Installation Problems

For a while now people are struggling with some TFS SP1 installation issues. The majority of issues come down to a tool called TFSQuiesce.exe, that is responsible to "shutdown" TFS while performing the SP1 upgrade and restart it when it is done. Most issues with it are that for some reason, it does not always shutdown all services and it does not always restart them properly - leaving your server in an inoperable state. The good news is that it is almost always easy to recover from.

Customer Scenarios

The following scenarios describe the vast majority of issues seen around SP1.

	Issue	Customer Impact	Workarounds/Next Steps
1	SP1 fails to install on a SQL Cluster	Blocked from installing SP1 or any other DT patches.	None. Look for a patch/work around coming in the next couple of weeks.
2	SP1 install fails and: TFS databases in single-user mode IIS in state where remote connections are declined	AT won’t start an errors reported in Event Log. Http 403 forbidden error with browsers TF2101 message from TE (can't connect)	To get running (without SP1): Databases must be manually placed back in multi-user mode. Use SQL Management Studio; right click on each TFS database; select properties; Select the Options page; At the very bottom there is an item called "restrict access" - set it to "multi_user". There is a KB article in the works and should be published soon. IIS must be manually configured to accept remote connections - See section 6.9 of the SP1 Known issues doc below. To install SP1: Manually put remaining databases in single-user mode and retry installation. Use SQL Management Studio; right click on each TFS database; select properties; Select the Options page; At the very bottom there is an item called "restrict access" - set it to "single_user". This will not always work if other people are trying to use the database at the same time.
3	SP1 install succeeds but leaves IIS in state where remote connections are declined	Http 403 forbidden error with browsers TF2101 message from TE (can't connect)	IIS must be manually configured to accept remote connections - See section 6.9 of the SP1 Known issues doc below.
4	Users can’t uninstall SP1 Beta after installing Quiescing	The Quiescing logic breaks the Beta from uninstalling but you can’t uninstall Quiescing from Add/Remove programs because it doesn’t appear there if SP1 Beta is installed. (A chicken and egg issue.) The SP1 RTM will not allow you to install if the SP1 Beta is installed.	Run a manual uninstall operation from the command-line. See the steps at the bottom of this post... Uninstall TFS SP1 Beta - using Add/Remove Programs.
5	SP1 fails to install	These error are usually due to changes in configuration after RTM installation that our setup does not handle well. In some cases the customers are left with an unusable server.	Requires a review of the install logs for more details on the specific error and then ultimately identify the configuration change that broke the installer.

Here is a link to an SP1 Known Issues page. Most of these "issues" aren't new problems with SP1 but rather just common issues that people run into with TFS and what you can do about them.

VSTS TechNotes

A great resource I got across ... VSTS TechNotes

TechNotes are short, focused technical articles that explain a specific
concept or walk through a particular scenario. TechNotes are intended to
supplement the product documentation and technical articles. In addition, we
have brought together some of our very best blog postings in a central
location.

VSTS Project Integration Hotfix

When you assign a resource name in a Team Project in VSTS, the resource name may appear as two or more resources when you try to manage the Project in Microsoft Project.
This problem may occur when you use the comma delimiter to separate the last name, the first name, and the middle initial of a resource name in VSTS.

There is a Hotfix available now from Microsoft to fix this issue.

Beta Exam 71-510: TS: Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server

You can now register to take Beta Exam 71-510: TS: Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server, which is the beta for 70-510.

This certification exam counts as credit towards the MCTS: Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server certification.

Registration Begins: February 1, 2007

Beta Exam Period: February 20, 2007 through March 5, 2007

Promotion Code for Registration: TSVS510

Testing is held at Prometric and Pearson VUE testing centers worldwide, although this exam may not be available in all countries. All testing centers will have the capability to offer this exam in its live version.

Beta exams have limited availability and are operated under a first-come-first-served basis. Once all beta slots are filled, no additional seats will be offered.

The exam covers the following topic areas. The percentage indicates the portion of the exam that addresses a particular skill.

• Installing and configuring Microsoft Team Foundation Server (12%)
• Administering Team Foundation Server instances and team projects (25%)
• Administering Team Foundation Server version control (19%)
• Administering work item types and process templates (19%)
• Administering a team build (14%)
• Managing team project reporting and documentation (11%)

For more information, see Preparation Guide for Exam 70-510: TS: Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server.

Generating documentation from code with Team Build

Brian Keller replied to an internal email thread discussing generating documentation from code as part of a build. Check the below links if you would like to do the same.

I just wanted to point out that there are several MSBuild targets available
for Sandcastle which should make
it pretty straightforward to integrate with Team Build. I was actually at one of
my customer’s offices yesterday and they were showing me that they had
integrated Sandcastle with their build process and it looked quite good. I
haven’t tried using these targets yet so I can’t tell you which one is best, but
between the three of them you should find something which works for your
customer:

• Mike Diehl’s blog: http://weblogs.asp.net/miked/archive/2006/08/06/Sandcastle-MSBuild-target.aspx
• CodePlex project: http://www.codeplex.com/MSBuildSandcastle
• Richard Murillo’s blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/rimuri/archive/2006/10/30/reusable-msbuild-sandcastle-targets-file.aspx

Getting Code Coverage Without Tests ...

The following steps shows how to get code coverage on .NET applications without having to actually run "tests" in the VSTS context. You will need either VSTS for Developers, VSTS for Testers, or VSTS Team Suite Edition installed to have the right tools to make it work.

Using the commandline you can instrument any .NET assembly, but beware of code signing as it might cause problems. Once the code is instrumtented, you need to get the "listener" running to collect the code coverage data generated, as follows:

1. Open a VS command prompt
2. Instrument your assembly by executing:
   vsinstr /coverage Assemblyname.dll
3. Start the Code Coverage monitoring process by executing:
   vsperfcmd /start:coverage /output:yourfilename.coverage
4. Run your Application that contains the instrumented code
5. End the Code Coverage monitoring process by executing:
   vsperfcmd /shutdown
6. Open the file "yourfilename.coverage" found in your application directory in Visual Studio to view the results.

TeamRM ... Robust Work Item Management Tool

TeamRM, a Visual Studio 2005 plug-in that enables more robust work item management and visualization by allowing the user to create and manage Parent/Child and Link relationships between Team Foundation Work Items is now available in Team System Rocks Files Area. This is a fully functional pre-release version in need of your feedback. Please use the file comments or forum to send them your feedback.

TeamCity adds support for TFS

TeamCity is an innovative, IDE independent, integrated team environment targeted for .NET and Java software developers and their managers. It automates and coordinates key collaborative processes to eliminate manual systems and delays, providing tight integration with multiple build and test tools, real-time unit test frequency, server-side inspections and code coverage analysis.

JetBrains, the makers of TeamCity have begun integration with TFS. They have a pre-release of TeamCity available for download. It's recommended that everyone to check it out and let them know what they think about it.

Keyboard Shortcut Reference Posters for VS

VS Keyboard Shortcut Reference Posters are now available for download free from Microsoft Download Center.

You can download your language of preference and print at your convenience from the following links.

Visual Basic, Visual C# and/or Visual C++

TFS Powerful Easy Reports Add-In

TFS ships with a number of reports that allow you to track your progress of a project but modifying or creating new reports in Microsoft Visual Studio™ can prove to be challenging. Radius, from 90 Degree Software, integrates directly with TFS and delivers a powerful but easy to use reporting solution that allows you to rapidly create and use reports based on existing TFS queries.

The Radius Advantage:

• Powerful and easy to use: Radius delivers report designers with an easy-to-use, yet powerful, reporting solution. The results-oriented user interface, designed to look and feel like Microsoft Office 2007, intuitively provides users with quick access to the features they need most, right when they need them. People who are already familiar with tools like Microsoft Office Word, Excel or PowerPoint will intuitively pick up and use Radius features with little instruction. As a result, report designers can create, modify and deploy user specific reports that are meaningful, interactive, and meet the needs of their diverse end-users, and they can do this quickly, increasing productivity.
• The Radius TFS add-in: Provides TFS users the ability to use an existing team or personal TFS workitem query as the report query. The user is then able to proceed in creating visual report objects such as tables, charts and matrixes. The add-in also allows the project manager to quickly define filters based on TFS items such as AssignedTo values. The project manager can define custom groups of developers to filter the report quickly without needing to define this in the TFS query. Once the project manager has added the TFS query or queries to the report all of the report design features are available.
• Search, Reuse and Securely Share: One of the powerful features Radius provides is the ability to search, re-use, and securely share any report or report component. As a result of leveraging existing reports and report components, organizations can decrease report deployment time, reduce the time, and costs required, to deploy reports.

The tool is really worth the check ...

TFSWarehouse Cube Corruption

Ever got your TFSWarehouse Cube corrupted?

One of the reasons I got that corruption was due to machine failure that corrupted some of the cube's XML files, I spent quite some time trying to figure out the problem and how to solve it, but luckily I got to fix it easily in 4 steps.

1. Open SQL Management and Stop the TFS Analysis Service on the TFS Data Tier.
2. Go to "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.2\OLAP\Data" on the TFS Data Tier, and delete the folder TFSWarehouse.0.db and the XML file TFSWarehouse.0.db.xml
3. Run the following command on the TFS Data Tier to rebuild the cube, it can be found in "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server\Tools"SetupWarehouse -o -s TFSServer -d TFSWarehouse -c warehouseschema.xml -a TFSServiceAccount -ra TFSReportsAccount -mturl http://TFSServer:8080
4. Start the TFS Analysis Service on the TFS Data Tier and Process the cube to get back on track.

That's all you need to do. Hope that will help ...

VSTS Load Test Simulating Browser Cache

Below are some notes that can allow the Load Test containg Web Tests to attempt simulating the caching behavior of the browser

• There is a property named on each request in a Web test named “Cache Control” in the Web test editor (and named “Cache” on the WebTestRequest object in the API used by coded Web tests)
• When the Cache Control property on a request in the Web test is false, the request is always issued.
• When the Cache Control property is true, the VSTS load test runtime code attempts to emulate the Internet Explorer caching behavior (with the “Automatically” setting) as described in this article:
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwebgen/html/ie_introfiddler2.asp?frame=true
  (This includes reading and following the HTTP cache control directives.)
• The Cache Control property is automatically set to true for all dependent requests (typically for images, style sheets, etc embedded on the page).
• In a load test, the browser caching behavior is simulated separately for each user running in the load test.
• When a virtual user in a load test completes a Web test and a new Web test session is started to keep the user load at the same level, sometimes the load test starts simulates a “new user” with a clean cache, and sometimes the load test simulates a return user that has items cached from a previous session.
  This is determined by the “Percentage of New Users” property on the Scenario in the load test.
  The default for “Percentage of New Users” is 100 in which case all user sessions are started with a clean cache.
  This is probably not correct for most applications where there are return users, so users should consider the most appropriate value to use for this setting depending on the actual usage of the application being load tested.

There was a bug in the original release of Visual Studio 2005 Team System that is fixed by the SP1 update where the load test was not honoring the “max-age” cache control directive.

TFSServerManager PowerTool

BHarry, is working on a great tool called TFSServerManager that contains lots of capabilities mainly for dogfood statistics, it should be checked out on his post

I can't wait to see it out and start using it...

What Can TFS Tell You?

Throughout the software development life cycle countless data streams into the TFS data warehouse.
It takes many data points to illustrate a trend and guide decision making for managing a project.
The two process templates that ship with TFS include a number of reports for visualizing this data. However, do they answer the questions you're asking, or the questions your stakeholders are asking you?

The TFS Reporting team developed a brief (15-minute) survey to assess your reporting needs as they working their way on the next release of the product.
By participating in this survey, you may very well save yourself the time of creating your own custom reports. Take the survey and let your needs be known! Team Foundation Server Reporting Survey

Advanced Load Testing Features of Visual Studio Team System

Bill Barnett, a Software Design Engineer in Microsoft, wrote a great article on MSDN describing all the bits and pieces of Load Test features in VSTS.

Visual Studio Team Test Edition provides two capabilities that can allow
users to create load tests of web sites quickly and easily: the Web Test
recorder and the Load Test wizard. In fact, these tools make this process so
easy that it is tempting to use the web tests and the load tests that result
from using these tools without much modification. However, to use the web
testing and load testing capability most effectively it is beneficial to
understand how to use other web test and load test properties that are not set
by these tools. This note describes some of the most important considerations
for load testing with Visual Studio Team System that are not addressed by the
web test recorder and the load test wizard.

TfsAdminUtil and Reporting Services Service Account

The following is a snapshot of the error that you might see if the Reporting Services data sources are not updated when the account is changed or updated:

Reporting Services Error

---

• An error has occurred during report processing. (rsProcessingAborted) Get Online Help
  


• Cannot impersonate user for data source 'TfsOlapReportDS'. (rsErrorImpersonatingUser) Get Online Help
  


• Logon failed. (rsLogonFailed) Get Online Help
  


• For more information about this error navigate to the report server on the local server machine, or enable remote errors

---

SQL Server Reporting Services

If your Reporting Services service account has changed because you moved your Team Foundation Server installation or if you are using a different account, you will need to run TfsAdminUtil ChangeAccount.

In addition to this, you will also need to update the password and/or username for the TfsReportDS and the TfsOlapReportDS data sources manually using the Reporting Services web site at: http:///Reports/

More documentation on this topic: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms252480(VS.80).aspx

Changes to the VSTS for DB Professionals Download

Recently some changes to the download of the Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals Add-on were made to try to clear up some initial confusion customers were reporting.

This is the add-on which installs into Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite edition and provides the additional functionality provided by Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals.

Here is a quick list of the changes:

• Add-on no longer called a "Trial"
  The add-on can be used in a trial mode when installed with the Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite 180-day Trial Edition. When running in this mode you will get all of the Team Suite and Database Professionals functionality, and both of these solutions will stop working when your trial time period expires. However, if you own a "full" (non-trial) edition of Team Suite then this add-on will not expire since you are entitled to receive the Database Professionals functionality for free as a benefit of owning Team Suite edition. Hence it didn't really make sense to name this add-on a "Trial" by default when it can in fact be installed as a full add-on provided that you have an appropriate license to Team Suite.
  
• .EXE and .ISO available
  Previously only a .ISO file for download was offered, which required you to either mount that image or use a CD burning program to create media. They are still offering an .ISO file, but now they are also providing a self-extracting archive file (the .EXE) which you can download and quickly run to get started.
  
• Documentation Clarification
  Remember that this add-on does not provide the Team Edition for Database Professionals documentation. To get the documentation, you can either view it online or you can download and install a newer version of the MSDN Library which includes this documentation. The latest version is available here.

Hopefully those changes clear up some confusion - but if you still have questions please visit the Team Edition for Database Professionals Forum.