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++