The art of simplicity

Last week I had some trouble opening up a test results file from our build server. Every time I clicked on the link in the Build Report I got an error back. OK I said, let’s browse to the drop folder and have a look at the test results file(*.trx) directly. However I noticed that the Test Results folder is not copied to the drop location anymore. This is a change compared to TFS 2008 where the test results are available at the drop location. So where are my test results than? In TFS 2008 MSTest.exe used to copy the TRX file and other files to the drop location. In TFS 2010, the test results are uploaded to the Test Case Management server. Luckily the test result files are still created at the build location. So, if you log in to the build server, you can find the .trx file there. To simplify the process I added a custom activity to my build workflow that re-introduces the copy of the Test Result files to the drop location.

Microsoft shipped a beta version of the Team Foundation Server Power Tools that work with VS 11 and are optimized to work with TFS 11. This Power Tools release is designed to work with a VS 11 client (or Team Explorer 11) but you won’t get the VS integration in a VS 2010 or earlier client. This beta gives you the most useful Power Tools up and running with VS 11/TFS 11. Some of the features of the previous Power Tools are removed because they have  been integrated into the product and At the moment no new features are added instead. The features included in this release are: TFS Power Tools TFPT Command Line The Team Explorer extensions – All are included except work item templates. Windows Shell Extension – It’s been enhanced to support local workspaces meaning no more read-only files and need to checkout, better offline support and everything else that comes with local workspaces. Process Template Editor – We’ve added support for al...

I talked about running your build server on Azure before. Although this solution worked, it was a cumbersome and time consuming process. You had to install, manage, patch, etc the build machines yourself. Last week at VS Live, Brian Harry announced and demonstrated a better solution: a new cloud based build service for Team Foundation Service on Azure . With this new service, you can just use a pool of build machines that are manage in the cloud (though you can still install and manage build machines if you like). And, of course, you can do more than just build – like with on-premises TFS, you can run a default workflow that includes, compilation, testing, etc or you can create a custom workflow that does whatever you like. The new build service works by maintaining a pool of Azure VM roles that can expand and shrink as needed. When you start a build, a VM is allocated from the pool to run your build. Your build is run, the build output is copied off the build machine then the VM...

Last week I finally had some time to start migrating our TFS 2010 environment to the TFS 11 beta. The first time I tried to do the migration it failed because I didn’t had the latest updates installed for SQL Server 2008 R2. The installation procedure mentions that you need at least SQL Server 2008 R2 with SP1 and Cumulative Update 1 installed. So to get everything working, first install SP1: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26727 Afterwards you can download and install the Cumulative Updates(I think Cumulative Update 4 is the latest version): http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2633146 . Don’t try to mix the order, in that case you’ll end with the following error message(or something similar) during installation: The version of SQL Server instance MSSQLSERVE does not match the version expected by the SQL SErver update. The installed SQL Server product version is 10.50.1600.1, and the expected SQL Server version is 10.51.2500.0.

To integrate CruiseControl with TFS, we are using the TFS CCNET Plugin project on CodePlex. The plug-in works great will all versions of Team Foundation Server(although there is no official support for TFS 2010). However last week, after importing a specific project, we got the following error message from CruiseControl: ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.Core.CruiseControlException: Warning AssemblyInfo.cs - Unable to perform the get operation because it is writable What happened? During the build, we update the AssemblyInfo.cs class to include the build number in the assembly information. Therefore we remove the readonly attribute from the file and add the build information to the file. The problem is that TFS tries to be smart about your workspace usage based on the fact that your files are readonly(although this has changed in TFS 11). So it doesn’t like that it finds some files that are not readonly inside your workspace. As CruiseControl does not remove the workspace by de...

Brian Keller announced the availability of updated DemoMates for the Visual Studio 11 Beta. A DemoMate is a Silverlight-based rendering of a software demo which can be used to easily learn a demo or show it to an audience (albeit in a strict, linear format). You can run these DemoMates online, or if you plan on using these in an environment where you might not always have Internet access then I suggest installing the offline version. Online: Agile Project Management in Team Foundation Server 11 Building the Right Software - Generating Storyboards and Collecting Stakeholder Feedback with Visual Studio 11 Diagnosing Issues in Production with IntelliTrace and Visual Studio 11 Exploratory Testing and Other Enhancements in Microsoft Test Manager 11 Making Developers More Productive with Team Foundation Server 11 Unit Testing with Visual Studio 11 - MSTest, NUnit, xUnit.net, and Code Clone Offline: (gets installed locally on your computer) Agile Pr...

Microsoft introduced some interesting changes last week regarding the TFS licensing requirements. What’s changed? Team Explorer Everywhere: You no longer need to purchase Team Explorer Everywhere separately. Before today, Team Explorer Everywhere users had to purchase both a Client Access License (CAL) and the Team Explorer Everywhere software, whereas Visual Studio Team Explorer users only had to purchase a CAL – the Visual Studio Team Explorer software has always been a free download ( TE 2008 , TE 2010 , TE 11 Beta ) for users who had a license to access a TFS server. Now the story is the same for Team Explorer Everywhere ( TEE 2010 with SP1 , TEE 11 Beta ). Team Foundation Server Reporting – Microsoft removed the TFS CAL requirement  for viewing reports in TFS. This addresses a long standing concern that it was not reasonable to require a CAL for the occasional stakeholder who wanted to check a report to see progress or issues. Using TFS from within Microsoft Sy...

My shortest post ever . With the beta release of Visual Studio 11, the Visual Studio 11 ALM Virtual Machine has also been updated, along with all of the hands-on-labs and demo scripts. Get the updated VM here !

TFS 2010 support offline clients. This means that you can continue to work although the TFS connection is not available. So if you start up VS and attempt to load a project contained in TFS and TFS cannot be found then VS will prompt you to work in offline mode. There is only one problem: VS only does this when loading a solution.  If TFS goes offline while a solution is already open though VS will not switch to offline mode.  Instead it'll keep trying to connect to TFS and then time out.  This is really inconvenient.  So how can we tell TFS to go offline without having to reopen Visual Studio? I’m aware of 2 options: Through the tfpt command line utility in the TFS Power Tools Through the Visual Studio Go offline extension TFPT.exe Open a Visual Studio 2010 command prompt Run tfpt.exe with the ‘tweakUI’ option Select the appropriate server and click Edit. In the server properties dialog, check the Server is offline checkbox and...

Just before the availability of  VS/TFS 11 Beta, Microsoft introduces a new download of TFS, called Team Foundation Server Express , that includes core developer features: Source Code Control Work Item Tracking Build Automation Agile Taskboard and more… It’s a FREE version of TFS for individuals and teams of up to 5 users. The Express edition is essentially the same TFS as you get when you install the TFS Basic wizard except that the install is trimmed down and streamlined to make it incredibly fast and easy. In addition to the normal TFS Basic install limitations (no Sharepoint integration, no reporting), TFS Express: Is limited to no more than 5 named users. Only supports SQL Server Express Edition Can only be installed on a single server (no multi-server configurations) Includes the Agile Taskboard but not sprint/backlog planning or feedback management. Excludes the TFS Proxy and the new Preemptive analytics add-on. More users c...

Last week Microsoft released an update to the Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview Training Kit. The Training Kit is available in two different offline packages and is also available to browse online at MSDN . You can download the kit as a single package (37.2mb download), or you can download the Web Installer (2.5mb download) to browse the available content and download only the labs that you need. Below is the list of hands-on labs that are included in the Training Kit. Visual Studio Development Environment A Lap Around the Visual Studio 11 Development Environment What's New in Visual Studio 11 for C++ Developers (new) Languages Asynchronous Programming in the .NET Framework 4.5 Web What's New in ASP.NET and Web Development in VS 11 What's New in Web Forms in ASP.NET 4.5 What's New in ASP.NET MVC 4 (new) Using Page Inspector in Visual Studio 11 (new) Build RESTful APIs with WCF Web API .NET Framework Using Portable...

Last week Microsoft releases the first Team Foundation Services update that introduces some significant new functionality. Normally all features we’ll see are also going to be part of the new TFS 11. So what’s new? Redone navigation model to add a bit more style, rework administration mode and more. Enhanced homepages for teams and team projects to make them more interactive and intuitive. Simplified Web UI for Small Teams Improved performance E-mail Notifications and a new UI for managing subscriptions. Forecast Lines to project where your iteration boundaries are likely to fall based on your team’s velocity and the estimates on your product backlog items. In-Tile Taskboard Editing on the taskboard. Read the official announcement and all the details here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudioalm/archive/2011/12/08/team-foundation-service-december-update.aspx