Unable to start the build controller

by Ewald Hofman 29. August 2010 14:22
I had an issue with my build controller that it would start. Finally I was able to resolve the issue. First the context. I wanted to start the build under a Build Service account, so I created a new user in AD. Then I went to the TFS Administration Console and clicked on the Build Configuration. In... [More]

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Team Build | VS 2010

Create custom work item control for TFS Web Access 2010 (TWA)

by Ewald Hofman 10. August 2010 14:06
For the customization of the work item controls for the client are many examples. There is even a codeplex project that hosts some examples. However if you want to provide a custom work item control for Web Access, it turns out that there is only little information. In this post I will describe what... [More]

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Work items | VSTS 2010 | TSWA

How to use WCF to subscribe to the TFS 2010 Event Service [rolling up hours]

by Ewald Hofman 2. August 2010 15:43
There is a lot of information on the web around the TFS Event Service, but that is mainly around ASMX and TFS 2008. I am using Visual Studio 2010, TFS 2010 and WCF. To be able to subscribe to the created event, the easiest is to have a local instance of TFS 2010 running on your machine. The purpose... [More]

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TFS SDK | VSTS 2010 | Work items

Change the Bug Status report to reflect additional states to the Bug

by Ewald Hofman 16. July 2010 22:42
The bug work item has 3 (Agile: Active, Resolved, Closed) or 4 states (CMMI: Proposed, Active, Resolved, Closed). Those states are used also in the reporting. When you use additional states you will see that the colors are not in the trend that the default states have. Also the order of the states m... [More]

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Reporting | VSTS 2010

Reflect the rename of a state for the Bug Work Item

by Ewald Hofman 16. July 2010 22:20
The bug work item has 3 (Agile: Active, Resolved, Closed) or 4 states (CMMI: Proposed, Active, Resolved, Closed). Those states are used also in the reporting. When you rename the state, it is not automatically picked up by the reporting. Luckily Microsoft has foreseen that not everybody uses the sam... [More]

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Reporting | VSTS 2010

The “Active bugs by Assignment” and “Resolved Bugs by Assignment” chart is not visible in the Bug Status report

by Ewald Hofman 16. July 2010 21:54
I have a TFS 2010 demo box on Windows Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2008. While I was busy in a team project based on the default Agile or CMMI process template, I saw in the Bug Status report something strange. Although I had bugs assigned (of course it was a demo environment, because I never deli... [More]

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Reporting | VSTS 2010

The Hyper-V Data Exchange Service is not installed on the virtual machine

by Ewald Hofman 15. July 2010 10:38
I am preparing a machine for testing and demos. While I was busy installing my machine I was unable to start my build service anymore with the following error Build Service received Stop command and will be stopped. Details: Error in starting TFSBuildServiceHost in Lab mode. ExceptionType:System.Ex... [More]

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Build server stops suddenly and frequently

by Ewald Hofman 14. July 2010 14:33
I have a TFS 2010 instance in which suddenly (and frequently) the build controller stops responding. When I look into the properties of the build controller and press Test Connection, I get the following error: The controller status has been changed by the Team Foundation Server at MyMachine Reas... [More]

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TF260107 while installing Lab Management

by Ewald Hofman 12. July 2010 07:02
I am installing Lab Management on my local machine for test and demo purposes. The installation is not very easy because Lab Management heavily relies on multiple tools in the Microsoft stack that I am not familiar with, especially System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM). However Microsoft has... [More]

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Refresh the warehouse automatically

by Ewald Hofman 7. July 2010 22:17
When you are modifying the reports in Team Foundation Server, you want to add new data (such as work items) to test the reports. I have written a blog post how you can do that manually, but I wanted to do that with a little app to save time. Attached is the source code and the exe (be aware to ... [More]

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Reporting | VSTS 2010

Project Server Integration for TFS 2010 CTP released

by Ewald Hofman 5. July 2010 16:22
Microsoft has released a public CTP for the integration with Project Server. You can download the HyperV images at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=f221c660-161b-43ca-95f3-e0e4aad8d43e This community technical preview of Team Foundation Server 2010 and Pro... [More]

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Shortcut to compare files in the Pending Change window

by Ewald Hofman 1. July 2010 15:54
Update: added the settings to change the default behaviour In the pending changes window you can double click a file, which opens the file. Another action I perform frequently in the dialog is to compare the file with the latest version to see which changes I have done to the file. Instead of o... [More]

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Blogging about code fragments and format them nicely, also in RSS feeds

by Ewald Hofman 8. June 2010 11:04
I have been searching a long time for the best way to add C# code fragments to my blog posts. I have tried Manoli for quite some while, which I learned from Henry Cordes. But if you use that, the RSS feeds really s#ck. So I switched to screen shots in my latest posts to have an easy way to present ... [More]

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Customize Team Build 2010 – Part 10: Include Version Number in the Build Number

by Ewald Hofman 1. June 2010 20:07
In the series the following parts have been published Part 1- Introduction Part 2- Add arguments and variables Part 3- Use more complex arguments Part 4- Create your own activity Part 5- Increase AssemblyVersion Part 6- Use custom type for an argument Part 7- How is the c... [More]

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Team Build | VSTS 2010

Customize Team Build 2010 – Part 9: Impersonate activities (run under other credentials)

by Ewald Hofman 28. May 2010 07:25
In the series the following parts have been published Part 1- Introduction Part 2- Add arguments and variables Part 3- Use more complex arguments Part 4- Create your own activity Part 5- Increase AssemblyVersion Part 6- Use custom type for an argument Part 7- How is the c... [More]

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Customize Team Build 2010 – Part 8: Send information to the build log?

by Ewald Hofman 28. May 2010 06:45
In the series the following parts have been published Part 1- Introduction Part 2- Add arguments and variables Part 3- Use more complex arguments Part 4- Create your own activity Part 5- Increase AssemblyVersion Part 6- Use custom type for an argument Part 7- How is the c... [More]

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VSTS 2010 | Team Build

Customize Team Build 2010 – Part 7: How is the custom assembly found?

by Ewald Hofman 27. May 2010 13:36
In the series the following parts have been published Part 1- Introduction Part 2- Add arguments and variables Part 3- Use more complex arguments Part 4- Create your own activity Part 5- Increase AssemblyVersion Part 6- Use custom type for an argument Part 7- How is the c... [More]

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VSTS 2010 | Team Build

Customize Team Build 2010 – Part 6: Use custom type for an argument

by Ewald Hofman 17. May 2010 16:06
In the series the following parts have been published Part 1- Introduction Part 2- Add arguments and variables Part 3- Use more complex arguments Part 4- Create your own activity Part 5- Increase AssemblyVersion Part 6- Use custom type for an argument Part 7- How is the c... [More]

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Team Build | VSTS 2010

Customize Team Build 2010 – Part 5: Increase AssemblyVersion

by Ewald Hofman 13. May 2010 17:33
In the series the following parts have been published Part 1- Introduction Part 2- Add arguments and variables Part 3- Use more complex arguments Part 4- Create your own activity Part 5- Increase AssemblyVersion Part 6- Use custom type for an argument Part 7- How is the c... [More]

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Team Build | VSTS 2010

How to connect VS 2003, VS 2005 and VS 2008 to TFS 2010?

by Ewald Hofman 29. April 2010 21:21
The architecture of TFS 2010 is changed, and the shipped products are now aware of this new architecture. So you need an update for these products to be able to connect to TFS. Visual Studio 2008 You need to install the Forward Compatibility Update for Visual Studio 2008. Before you can apply this... [More]

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VSTS 2010

Customize Team Build 2010 – Part 4: Create your own activity

by Ewald Hofman 29. April 2010 21:21
In the series the following parts have been published Part 1- Introduction Part 2- Add arguments and variables Part 3- Use more complex arguments Part 4- Create your own activity Part 5- Increase AssemblyVersion Part 6- Use custom type for an argument Part 7- How is the c... [More]

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Team Build | VSTS 2010

Customize Team Build 2010 – Part 3: Use more complex arguments

by Ewald Hofman 28. April 2010 11:36
In the series the following parts have been published Part 1- Introduction Part 2- Add arguments and variables Part 3- Use more complex arguments Part 4- Create your own activity Part 5- Increase AssemblyVersion Part 6- Use custom type for an argument Part 7- How is the c... [More]

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Team Build | VSTS 2010

TFS 2010 did not update the Warehouse and Cube

by Ewald Hofman 27. April 2010 23:30
After the upgrade from TFS 2008 to TFS 2010 the reporting was not working anymore. I got the following error message in the eventlog and the GetProcessingStatus webservice (you can find it when you open http://localhost:8080/tfs/TeamFoundation/Administration/v3.0/WarehouseControlService.asmx on your... [More]

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VSTS 2010 | Reporting

Upgrade the Build Server was not successful

by Ewald Hofman 27. April 2010 21:27
After upgrading the TFS server and the build server, everything seemed fine until I fired the first upgraded build. When you upgrade a build, you use the UpgradeTemplate, which basically has only one activity which is to fire off the MSBuild with the TFSBuild.proj you used also in TFS 2008. When I ... [More]

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Team Build | VSTS 2010

Customize Team Build 2010 – Part 2: Add arguments and variables

by Ewald Hofman 27. April 2010 13:47
In the series the following parts have been published Part 1- Introduction Part 2- Add arguments and variables Part 3- Use more complex arguments Part 4- Create your own activity Part 5- Increase AssemblyVersion Part 6- Use custom type for an argument Part 7- How is the custom ... [More]

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JIT debugger in mscorsvw after installing TFS 2010 on Windows Server 2003

by Ewald Hofman 26. April 2010 21:05
When you install TFS 2010 on a Windows Server 2003, with Visual Studio 2008 installed, you might get regularly an exception that shows you a window to open Visual Studio to start debugging. This is a known issue and solved with the following support article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2023204 ... [More]

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VSTS 2010

Disable the requirement on the secure connection for Reporting Services

by Ewald Hofman 22. April 2010 14:22
When I installed a brand new TFS 2010 instance, I was encountered with the following error message    [ Reporting ] TF255455: SQL Server Reporting Services is configured to require a secure connection. However, no HTTPS URL is configured with a valid certificate. Use the Reporting Service... [More]

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VSTS 2010 | Reporting

Customize Team Build 2010 – Part 1: Introduction

by Ewald Hofman 20. April 2010 14:49
In the series the following parts have been published Part 1- Introduction Part 2- Add arguments and variables Part 3- Use more complex arguments Part 4- Create your own activity Part 5- Increase AssemblyVersion Part 6- Use custom type for an argument Part 7- How is the c... [More]

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VSTS 2010 | Team Build

Time travelling with Work Item Queries In TFS 2010

by Ewald Hofman 20. April 2010 14:28
Someone asked me if I could help him because he made a mess of the work items. He published old data from Excel to TFS, so all the updates of his team mates where gone with one click. There is a nice and very under-appreciated feature in the work item queries to get the values of the work items at ... [More]

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TFS SDK | VSTS 2010 | Work items

Time travelling with Work Item Queries In TFS 2008

by Ewald Hofman 20. April 2010 13:51
Someone asked me if I could help him because he made a mess of the work items. He published old data from Excel to TFS, so all the updates of his team mates where gone with one click. There is a nice and very under-appreciated feature in the work item queries to get the values of the work items at ... [More]

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TFS SDK | VSTS 2008 | Work items

Auto deployment of my web application with Team Build 2010 to add Interactive Testing

by Ewald Hofman 12. April 2010 13:03
Since the beginning of Team Foundation Server, Team Build was part of the environment. In TFS 2010 the ability to perform CodedUI tests is introduced, as well as the Data Collectors Intellitrace and Test Impact. These data collectors don’t work for an ASP.NET application when the web application is ... [More]

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Check in violations

by Ewald Hofman 15. March 2010 15:18
Update August 5 2010: Added the version for 2010 (thanks to Mattias Sköld) In Visual Studio anyone can override the check-in policies. This is a good thing, because otherwise sometimes it would be impossible to check in files (for example due to a bug in the checkin policy, or to any very extr... [More]

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DevDays NL 2010

by Ewald Hofman 12. March 2010 06:16
The Dutch version of the DevDays will be this year on March, 30 and March, 31. One of the main topics in the event is Visual Studio 2010. A group of the Dutch MVP’s, the InnerCircle partners and some Microsoft consultants will do a track of 9 (!) sessions to bring you up to speed with the new pr... [More]

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TFS SDK 2010 – Part 6 – Replace text in all Work Item Query Definitions

by Ewald Hofman 9. March 2010 13:20
Updates 19-3-2010: Added the possibility to change the queries in a specific folder When you work iterative, you might just want to replace your current release or iteration in the query definitions, instead of creating a bunch of new queries. This post shows you how you can perform a quick an... [More]

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VSTS 2010 | TFS SDK

Eaglestone: the new TFS plugin for Eclipse

by Ewald Hofman 4. March 2010 05:56
Not long ago, Microsoft announced it had acquired Teamprise. The team does enormous work to transform the Teamprise products into Microsoft branded products. The product has the code name Eaglestone. The first beta version is now available for download.

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Supported platforms for the Test Manager 2010

by Ewald Hofman 3. March 2010 13:42
In the test manager, you can plan and execute test cases. When you execute a test case you can record the steps you perform on the user interface. The product team did a great job on the platforms they support, but not everything is (fully) supported. If you want to know what is supported, you can f... [More]

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VS 2010 License Whitepaper

by Ewald Hofman 11. February 2010 07:31
Do you want to know everything about the licensing of Visual Studio 2010. You can get a copy of the whitepaper at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=2b1504e6-0bf1-46da-be0e-85cc792c6b9d

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First TFS 2010 Beta 2 installation is upgraded

by Ewald Hofman 10. February 2010 20:30
Based on the blog of Bryan Krieger, http://blogs.msdn.com/bkrieger/archive/2010/02/03/tfs-2010-beta2-to-rc-upgrade-guide.aspx, I upgraded a single server TFS 2010 Beta 2 environment within a few hours to RC. It was a wonderful experience to see how smooth an upgrade can be done. Microsoft, thanks f... [More]

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Configuring TFS 2010

by Ewald Hofman 10. February 2010 20:27
With the Release Candidate now available for public, the need for guidance how to configure TFS 2010 becomes higher. Jim Lamb has published two videos on YouTube that show how to do this 1. Configure the Application Tier of TFS 2010 2. Configure the build server

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VS 2010 hits RC

by Ewald Hofman 9. February 2010 09:55
The Release Candidate for VS 2010 is available: http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry/archive/2010/02/08/vs-2010-net-4-release-candidate-is-available-for-msdn-subscribers.aspx The first impression is that the performance of Visual Studio is astonishing. In the coming weeks I will evaluate the product furth... [More]

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Where is the AdditionalReferencePath in TFS 2010?

by Ewald Hofman 9. February 2010 09:43
When you created a new build definition in TFS 2008, there were a few lines in the TFSBuild.proj file that gave you the ability to give hints where your references were stored. This was very useful when you included the external references in Version Control, so you did not need to install the assem... [More]

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Session on DevDays NL 2010

by Ewald Hofman 2. February 2010 10:43
Microsoft has this year for the DevDays 2010 in the Netherlands the opportunity to submit proposal for four wildcard sessions. The submitting is closed and now it is voting time. The sessions that have the most votes will be presented at DevDays. I have proposed with two session around “Testing wit... [More]

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VS ALM 2010 pricing

by Ewald Hofman 26. January 2010 07:32
Times are coming closer to the launch date of VS ALM 2010. Microsoft has just released the pricing for the new products. To refresh the memory, the features in the different SKU’s look like:  The prices that belong to these SKU’s are Suggested Retail Pricing (USD) for Visual Studio 2010 ... [More]

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VSTS 2010

5 minute overview of TFS 2010

by Ewald Hofman 14. January 2010 19:43
Ever wanted to know a quick overview of TFS. The VS ALM rangers have delivered a quick reference post, which can be found over here: http://vs2010quickref.codeplex.com/wikipage. The Visual Studio 2010 Quick Reference Guidance consists of compact cheat sheets for Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2010 an... [More]

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New launch date for VS ALM 2010

by Ewald Hofman 14. January 2010 18:36
Microsoft had decided several weeks ago to postpone the previous launch date. It was a hard decision, but the Product Team wanted to be sure to release a product that met quality standards, including performance. Microsoft has just announced that the new launch date will be April 12, 2010 . Be a... [More]

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TFS Sidekicks for TFS 2010 Beta 2

by Ewald Hofman 5. January 2010 08:56
Almost two months ago, I posted the following blog item TFS Sidekicks minor release update (2.4)and indicated that there would be support for TFS 2010 Beta 2 at the end of 2009. Attrice has announced that they just released an update for the version 2.4 that supports TFS 2010 Beta 2. For more info... [More]

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VSTS 2010

Great beginning of a new year with a MVP award

by Ewald Hofman 1. January 2010 17:39
So now and then you receive an email which brings a big smile on your face. That could be with a Dilbert mail or with a joke a friend has sent you. Today I received an email that even brought me a bigger smile. Microsoft has rewarded me the MVP award on Team System (or VS ALM as the new name will b... [More]

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TFS SDK 2010 – Part 5 – Create a new Test Case work item

by Ewald Hofman 11. December 2009 15:26
In Part 1 I have described how to access the Application Instance of the TFS server. This post describes how you can create a new test case based on the TestManagement capabilities. In later posts I will show what you can do more with the test management. In order to get access to the work items, a... [More]

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TFS SDK | VSTS 2010

TFS 2010 – Adding the SharePoint portal afterwards [Beta 2]

by Ewald Hofman 11. December 2009 14:39
I created a new Team Project in TFS 2010 Beta 2 and choose not to configure SharePoint during the creation of the Team Project. Of course I found out fairly quickly that a portal for TFS is very useful, especially the Iteration and the Product backlog workbooks and the dashboard reports. This blog ... [More]

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Portal | VSTS 2010

TFS SDK 2010 – Part 2 - Get a work item

by Ewald Hofman 11. December 2009 13:23
In Part 1 I have described how to access the Application Instance of the TFS server. This post describes how you can create access to your work items: In order to get access to the work items, add a reference to: Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Client.dll You can find the dll&rsquo... [More]

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TFS SDK | VSTS 2010

TFS SDK 2010 – Part 4 - Create a new User Story, with the implementation (Tasks) and test scenarios (Test Case)

by Ewald Hofman 10. December 2009 17:31
In Part 1 I have described how to access the Application Instance of the TFS server. This post describes how you can create new work items, including a new linked work item. The new link makes use of the new link type in TFS 2010, so it shows up on the correct tab page. In this example a new User St... [More]

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TFS SDK | VSTS 2010

OLAP PivotTable Extensions – your MDX reporting help

by Ewald Hofman 7. December 2009 10:48
In TFS you can create your own reports based on the Analysis warehouse. In order to be able to query the cube, you need to use the MDX language. This language is not very intuitive for someone who is used to query transactional databases, since you now have to deal with cubes, slices, facts and meas... [More]

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Reporting | VSTS 2008

TFS SDK 2010 – Part 3 - Enumerate the build controllers and agents

by Ewald Hofman 6. December 2009 14:48
In Part 1 I have described how to access the Application Instance of the TFS server. This post describes how you can create access to your build controller and agents: In order to get access to the work items, add a reference to: Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Build.dll You can fi... [More]

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VSTS 2010 | TFS SDK

TFS SDK 2010 – Part 1 – Get the Team Project Collection

by Ewald Hofman 3. December 2009 20:28
This is the first post in a series that describes how you can work with the TFS Object Model, API or SDK. In this first part we will open a connection to the team project collection that opens the ability to access all artifacts of TFS. Create a new project and add the following references to your ... [More]

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VSTS 2010 | TFS SDK

Power Tools and MSSCCI provider for TFS 2010 Beta 2

by Ewald Hofman 1. December 2009 20:55
Today Microsoft has released the first two extensions on TFS: MSSCCI provider TFPT MSSCCI provider With the MSSCCI provider, you can connect to TFS Version Control with environments other then Visual Studio 2008/2010. This provider has shown its relevance to have great adaptation in the ... [More]

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VSTS 2010

Refresh the TFS Warehouse manually

by Ewald Hofman 25. November 2009 17:18
Reporting (SSRS and Excel) in TFS makes use of Sql Server Analysis Server, or OLAP cube. This cube is by default refreshed every two hours. This is in most cases frequently enough to get the correct information. You can however change this default behaviour. You can either change the interval of the... [More]

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Reporting | VSTS 2010

TFS Sidekicks minor release update (2.4)

by Ewald Hofman 15. November 2009 17:39
When you are an administrator of a TFS environment, TFS Sidekicks helps you out a lot. Of course you can get all information with the command line tools, but I want to use the useful storage in my head for other things than remembering command line arguments. Features that are included in TFS Sidek... [More]

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VSTS 2008

Allow in TFS 2010 Team Query contributions by non-Project Administrators

by Ewald Hofman 13. November 2009 14:34
Team Queries are a great way to share queries over the team. In TFS 2008 you had to have the role of a Project Administrator to create Team Queries. Since Project Administrators can do much more, such as the adding and removing users to the team project and change the Team Project settings, you do n... [More]

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VSTS 2010 | Work items

Great news for the Teamprise users

by Ewald Hofman 9. November 2009 14:23
Microsoft has announced today at TechEd that it acquired TeamPrise Client Suite. The best known component of this suite is the Eclipse plug-in that allows Java users to integrate with TFS. This is just release by Brian Harry: http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry/archive/2009/11/09/microsoft-has-acquired-the... [More]

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VSTS 2010

Lap around TFS 2010 on DotNed on November 26th

by Ewald Hofman 9. November 2009 14:16
I am very excited to show the latest and greatest that is available in TFS 2010. Hassan Fadili from the VSTS track in the DotNed community user group and MVP Team System has asked me to do together with him a presentation on this topic. Most of the new things in TFS 2010 will be shown: Administr... [More]

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VSTS 2010

Import test cases from Excel

by Ewald Hofman 6. November 2009 22:28
On of the pillars of TFS 2010 is the “No More No Repro”. This statement is based on the exceptional tooling to improve the communication and information hand-over between the developer and the tester. The tooling that is used is the IntelliTrace (aka Historical Debugging) and the Test Ce... [More]

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VSTS 2010 | Work items | Test Essentials

Modifying Work Item Types in TFS 2010

by Ewald Hofman 6. November 2009 13:56
In TFS 2008 there is the process template editor to change the work items, or you were able to use the WitImport and WitExport for command line. In TFS 2010 the process template editor is not arrived yet, so you are stuck with the command line tools, but where are the WitImport and WitExport? In TF... [More]

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TFS 2008 API - Create a link between work items

by Ewald Hofman 3. November 2009 20:33
With the new version of TFS on the horizon, which supports hierarchical links out of the box with a cool user interface to quickly create a nice work breakdown, many of us are still stuck to TFS 2008 (which of course has many great features :) ). This post shows you how you can create the links by m... [More]

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VSTS 2008 | Work items

License costs of Team Foundation Server 2010

by Ewald Hofman 2. November 2009 22:05
In the 2008 era, the adoption of TFS was blocked because of the costs that small teams had to make to buy Team Foundation Server. You had two options: 1) the Workgroup Edition 2) the Full Edition The work group edition was included in a MSDN subscription and supported up to 5 users. So for small... [More]

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Get influence on the Visual Studio 2010 product

by Ewald Hofman 30. October 2009 09:09
  As you all know, the Beta 2 has arrived. Because the product is still in a beta phase, Microsoft is looking for feedback from you: the end-user. You have the chance to make the product better! You can find the survey at https://mscuillume.smdisp.net/Collector... [More]

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VS & TFS 2010 Beta 2 has arrived

by Ewald Hofman 19. October 2009 21:09
Finally, Microsoft has released today the beta 2 for MSDN subscribers today. With the release of this beta 2, Microsoft has also announced a new SKU model. In Visual Studio 2008, the following model was valid, which consisted of four SKU's. The branding of Visual Studio had terms of ... [More]

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VSTS 2010

Calculate Code Metrics automatically for all your applications and see the trend

by Ewald Hofman 7. October 2009 13:32
In Visual Studio 2008, Microsoft has added the code metrics, which gives you information about the quality and maintainability of the application. Unfortunately you can not easily start the code metrics automically, and you can not integrate it from Team Build. There is NDepend, which has the abili... [More]

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Reporting | VSTS 2008

TFS 2010 Beta 2 has a Go Live license

by Ewald Hofman 5. October 2009 15:16
TFS 2010 beta 2 will arrive very soon. This version is very stable, and Microsoft is very confident so it is giving a Go Live license to all customers. You can find more details on the blog of Brian Keller. The blog says: "But the best news is that beta 2 of Team Foundation Server 2010 will ha... [More]

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VSTS 2010

[Update] Time sheet

by Ewald Hofman 4. October 2009 10:08
A lot of software shops want to use TFS as the time tracking tool. Out of the box, TFS does not provide this information, because all time is entered cumulative per work item. But you can find the information when you look at the transaction database table where all the changes to the work items are... [More]

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Reporting | VSTS 2008 | Work items

lean TFS for SourceSafe users

by Ewald Hofman 2. October 2009 14:59
Microsoft has announced (http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry/archive/2009/10/01/tfs-2010-for-sourcesafe-users.aspx) that there will be a TFS 2010 basic installation. This version will support the Version Control, Work items, and Team Build. It is meant to be a replacement for all the companies and hob... [More]

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Free download of TFS Work Item Manager & TFS Project Dashboard

by Ewald Hofman 9. September 2009 20:26
Inspired by agile development methodologies, these two free applications have been designed to make working with Microsoft’s Team Foundation Server faster and easier. By promoting robust yet flexible project management practices, TFS Work Item Manager Beta and TFS Project Dashboard Beta allow ... [More]

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VSTS 2010 | Work items

Use Powershell to execute a TFS console app for each team project

by Ewald Hofman 8. September 2009 08:18
I wanted to remove one of the field mappings for MS Project for all team projects. Of course I could create a simple batch file and then retrieve all team project names from somewhere and copy the command several times. But as a real IT guy: I am lazy. So I wanted to automate the process. Of course... [More]

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VSTS 2008

Visual Studio Code Analysis Performance

by Ewald Hofman 7. September 2009 08:39
Doug Holland posted a very nice suggestion to improve the performance of Code Analyze. Bottom line is to add an option to only analyze the code files that have been checked out. If you like the suggestion, please vote on Microsoft Connect: https://connect.microsoft... [More]

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VSTS 2010

Side by side installation of TypeMock on the build server

by Ewald Hofman 2. September 2009 14:41
When you are in a situation where you develop applications that are tightly integrated with other systems, you want to have multiple tests such as the unit test, the system test, the integration test and the user acceptance test. You want the unit test to only bring a class under test, without havin... [More]

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Team Build | VSTS 2008

Renamed or deleted AD user prevents work item to save

by Ewald Hofman 31. August 2009 09:43
When a user is removed from AD, all work items the user has created and/or changed can't be saved anymore. To overcome this issue, you can do the following Step Description 1 Download the TFS 2008 power tools from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=00803636-1d16... [More]

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VSTS 2008 | Work items

GDR R2 database projects

by Ewald Hofman 21. August 2009 15:51
A collegue asked me to help him out with his database deployment on the build server. In the past I did that before, with a lot of strugle and thought that using the same script could be simple applied to make it happen. Of course it didn't work out in that way. In my quest to solve the problem, I f... [More]

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VSTS 2008

Useful usage of MS Project

by Ewald Hofman 17. August 2009 15:27
Problem When I heard from TFS the first time in 2005 I was very delighted to see the MS Project integration with TFS. When starting my first project in TFS, I immediately started to use MS Project to plan the project. Finally I was able to see what the impact would be for the project and also use i... [More]

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VSTS 2008 | Work items

Configure TFS portal afterwards

by Ewald Hofman 13. August 2009 17:47
Update #1 January 8th, 2010: There is an updated post on this topic for Beta 2: http://www.ewaldhofman.nl/post/2009/12/10/Configure-TFS-portal-afterwards-Beta-2.aspx I created a new Team Project in TFS 2010 Beta 1 and choose not to configure SharePoint during the creation of the Team Project. Of co... [More]

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Portal | VSTS 2010

Make the description field formattable

by Ewald Hofman 4. August 2009 14:41
By default the description field in the work item definition (for example the Task work item), is plain text. To modify the type of the field to Html, you have to do the following: Step Action 1 Open the command prompt (Run as Administrator) 2 Go to the folder %Program Files%... [More]

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VSTS 2008 | VSTS 2010 | Work items

Add roles to the assigned To field

by Ewald Hofman 4. August 2009 10:28
When you create a new work item, you don't always know who exactly should pick up the work. In that case you want to introduce a role to the work item's assigned to field. To do this, you have to make a modification to the work item: Step Action 1 Open the command prompt (Run as Admi... [More]

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VSTS 2010 | Work items

Change the file masks that are excluded by Source Control

by Ewald Hofman 3. August 2009 07:32
When you add files to Source Control, some of the files are excluded automatically, such as dll files.   You can change the default setting by modifying one of the following registry keys: Per-User: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\<version>\TeamFoundation\SourceControl\AddOpt... [More]

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Version Control | VSTS 2008 | VSTS 2010

Reports do not show the latest data in TFS 2010 Beta 1

by Ewald Hofman 31. July 2009 09:08
There is in the Beta 1 version a bug that blocks processing the OLAP cube when you install a fresh instance of TFS 2010. This issue is solved in Beta 2. To workaround this, do the following: In a browser navigate to this URL: http://<servername>:<port">http://<servername>:<p... [More]

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VSTS 2010

Remove ***NO_CI*** changesets from merge candidates

by Ewald Hofman 27. July 2009 08:34
A common scenario when you use TFS and Team Build, is that you want to update your build number during that process. There is the AssemblyInfoTask to accomplish that, but the downside of this approach is that it will create an extra changeset on every build. When you use a braching strategy, th... [More]

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Team Build | Version Control | VSTS 2008

Automatically merge work item type modifications into existing team projects – part 3

by Ewald Hofman 21. July 2009 13:42
When you are working in an enterprise that has a lot of team projects, it is hard to make generic modifications to the work item types. Imagine that you want to add a field to all work item types in all team projects, first in the staging environment, then in the production environment. This means a... [More]

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VSTS 2008 | Work items

Automatically merge work item type modifications into existing team projects – part 2

by Ewald Hofman 21. July 2009 12:38
When you are working in an enterprise that has a lot of team projects, it is hard to make generic modifications to the work item types. Imagine that you want to add a field to all work item types in all team projects, first in the staging environment, then in the production environment. This means a... [More]

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VSTS 2008 | Work items

Automatically merge work item type modifications into existing team projects – part 1

by Ewald Hofman 21. July 2009 12:09
Introduction When you are working in an enterprise that has a lot of team projects, it is hard to make generic modifications to the work item types. Imagine that you want to add a field to all work item types in all team projects, first in the staging environment, then in the production environment... [More]

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VSTS 2008 | Work items

Improve performance TSWA

by Ewald Hofman 17. July 2009 08:49
When teams are adopting Team System Web Access, they get stuck in a known issue in Team System Web Access. It allocates a lot of memory that is not freed up. So over time you can see error messages that cannot be explained. To improve the performance of your TSWA installation you can do the followi... [More]

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TSWA | VSTS 2008

Time Entry report

by Ewald Hofman 9. July 2009 09:55
A frequently heard complaint about using the time fields in the work item is that there is already another system in the organization to enter the working hours in. Using the time fields in the work item would mean a double time management system, which can be out of sync. To come around this, I cr... [More]

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Reporting | VSTS 2008

Clear the cache of TFS

by Ewald Hofman 6. July 2009 20:53
When there are problems that are related to source control or anything else with Team Explorer, the first step to resolve the issue is to clear the cache. You can do that by emptying the C:\Documents and Settings\[USER]\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Team Foundation\2.0\Cache folder on yo... [More]

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VSTS 2008

Recover security settings

by Ewald Hofman 3. July 2009 11:05
It is possible in Version Control to override the security settings per folder. To do that uncheck the "Inherit security settings" and you can add, modify and remove the permission. When you accidently remove all accounts from the list, then it is not possible to view the contents of the folder for... [More]

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Version Control | VSTS 2008

Do not create a work item when the build fails

by Ewald Hofman 1. July 2009 21:29
When you create a new build definition there is a step by default that will create a work item when the build fails. This work item is customizable, but there is also the possibility to not create a work item. To deactivate the work item creation on a build failure, add the following line to your pr... [More]

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Team Build

Force the TFS warehouse to rebuild

by Ewald Hofman 30. June 2009 15:39
The reporting warehouse for TFS is rebuild by default every hour. This is in normal situations accurate enough. However, when you are testing how your modifications to your TFS artiface will be represented in the reports, you want to force to rebuild the TFS warehouse. You can achieve that by openi... [More]

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Create Team Project failure

by Ewald Hofman 25. June 2009 07:47
When I created a Team Project under the same account as the TFS installation was performed, I was able to create a new team project. Unfortunately, I got an error message that I did not have enough rights: ---begin Exception entry---Time: 2009-06-23 09:28:24ZModule: WSSException Type: Microsoft.Te... [More]

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VSTS 2010

Upload SSRS report to all subfolders

by Ewald Hofman 16. June 2009 09:50
When you develop a new report for TFS and you want to deploy the report to all team projects, you have to do a lot of work to upload the file and to set the datasources. This post uses TFS 2008 and SQL Server 2005 There is an easy way to automate that. 1. Add the web service to Reporting Ser... [More]

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Reporting

Project Velocity calculation in VSTS 2010 Beta 1

by Ewald Hofman 2. June 2009 21:41
To calculate the project velocity, TFS summarizes all remaining work of all work item types in the iteration. Imagine you have a breakdown of work items, such as at the top level a User Story, which is broken down into Tasks. The project velocity should be calculated by summarizing the Remaini... [More]

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VSTS 2010

Add SSRS report as dashboard to sharepoint

by Ewald Hofman 2. June 2009 15:58
It is possible to add a SSRS report to your Project Portal. In this way you can create a nice dashboard on you portal home page. This dashboard can consist of multiple reports, or can vary for the different roles in your team. On the Site Actions menu, choose the Edit Page action Click on Add a ... [More]

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Reporting

Retrieve historical data in Iteration Backlog

by Ewald Hofman 28. May 2009 12:21
I have installed on Windows XP the Visual Studio 2010 Team System Beta 1. When playing around with the iteration Backlog workbook, I was unable to retrieve the Historical Data. The VB editor popup up with the following error. When looking at the references of the workbook, it was indicating ... [More]

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VSTS 2010

Automatically connect to TFS under another user account

by Ewald Hofman 21. May 2009 21:57
When you make a connection to TFS with the Team Explorer, it will try to connect with your current credentials to the TFS environment. There are two scenarios in which you want something else: 1) You current identity has no access to TFS and you are prompted for the credentials every time you make ... [More]

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General

TFS 2010 Beta 1 installation

by Ewald Hofman 19. May 2009 14:43
Since a few days, the first beta of TFS 2010 is released. The installation went very smooth. Microsoft has put a lot of effort in the installation experience of TFS. I choose the run Default Configuration wizard. At my installation on Windows Server 2008 there were some caveats: 1) The Readiness C... [More]

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VSTS 2010

Report on Work breakdown in TFS

by Ewald Hofman 14. May 2009 00:32
Introduction In Team Foundation Server 2005 and 2008 it is possible to define links between work items. By doing this, you can imply a work breakdown for your project. This work breakdown is not explicit, since these links are not hierarchical. Therefore is the only report in TFS that does somethin... [More]

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Reporting | Work items

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About the author

 

Ewald Hofman is MVP VS ALM and consultant at Avanade. His specialization is Application Lifecycle Management solutions based on Visual Studio ALM.

 

 

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