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Test Attachment Cleaner

After starting to use the Microsoft Test Manager tools in Visual Studio 2010, I noticed that our databases started growing a lot faster. The reason for this is that the execution of a Test Run in Team Foundation Server 2010  generates a bunch of diagnostic data, for example, IntelliTrace logs (.iTrace), Video log files, Test Result (.trx) and Code Coverage (.cov) files. The downside of these rich diagnostic data captures is that the volume of the diagnostic data, over a period of time, can grow at a rapid pace. The Team Foundation Server administrator has little or no control over what data gets attached as part of Test Runs. There are no policy settings to limit the size of the data capture and there is no retention policy to determine how long to hold this data before initiating a cleanup.

A few months ago, the Test Attachment Cleaner for Visual Studio Ultimate 2010 & Test Professional 2010 power tool was released which addresses these shortcomings in a command-line tool.

Using the tool is a 2 step process.

First you have to create a settings file:

<!-- View/Delete all attachments on test runs older than 6 months, that are not linked to active bugs --> 
<DeletionCriteria> 
<TestRun> 
<AgeInDays OlderThan="180" />
</TestRun> 
<Attachment /> 
<LinkedBugs>     
<Exclude state="Active" /> 
</LinkedBugs> 
</DeletionCriteria>

Than you can execute the Test Attachment Cleaner with the following command:

MPT.exe attachmentCleanup /collection:http://localhost:8080/tfs/CollectionName /teamproject:TeamProjectName /settingsFile:OlderThan6Months.xml /mode:delete

More information here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/granth/archive/2011/02/12/tfs2010-test-attachment-cleaner-and-why-you-should-be-using-it.aspx

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