Buck Hodges

Team Build Compatibility between 2005 and 2008

July 27, 2007 Jul 27, 2007 07/27/07

Buck Hodges

The following question came up today, and I thought it would be useful to post. One thing I didn't mention was what happens in the upgrade process when you move from a 2005 server to a 2008 server.  The 2008 server stores in the database some properties that were previously stored either in the tfsbuild.proj (build agent computer, build ...

TFS 2008: How to check in without triggering a build when using continuous integration

July 27, 2007 Jul 27, 2007 07/27/07

Buck Hodges

If part of your build process is to check in a file, such as an updated version file, you wouldn't want that checkin to kick off another build.  You'd be stuck in an infinite loop. To prevent that problem, simply put the string ***NO_CI*** in the checkin comment.  The code that examines a changeset to determine whether to kick off a...

How to build without having the timestamp change on every file in the build’s workspace

July 25, 2007 Jul 25, 2007 07/25/07

Buck Hodges

A question came up a couple of times recently about an issue with the timestamps on the files involved in a build always being the current time.  The issue is that folks have customized their deployment process to deploy only files where the timestamps are newer.  Folks then ask for an option to have get set the timestamp to the ...

TFS 2008: Some properties that you can use to customize your build

July 24, 2007 Jul 24, 2007 07/24/07

Buck Hodges

Martin Woodward has posted a nice list of properties from Team Build that he has found useful.  While some of the properties were also in TFS 2005, quite a few are new for TFS 2008 (aka Orcas). Some of the properties, such as RequestedFor, are properties of the current build that are set by the server, and thus you wouldn't set them...

CodePlex project: TFSBuildLab

July 24, 2007 Jul 24, 2007 07/24/07

Buck Hodges

Peter Blomqvist and Mathias Olausson have undertaken an ambitious project to provide things like build queuing and continuous integration on top of TFS 2005.  While we have these features in TFS 2008, this project provides some of these essential features for use with your current TFS deployment. TFSBuildLab - Project Description ...

TFS 2008: Build agent configuration options

July 20, 2007 Jul 20, 2007 07/20/07

Buck Hodges

While some of the build agent properties are available in the VS GUI, buried in the tfsbuildservice.exe.config file are a number of options that control key aspects of the build agent and the build.  This file existed in TFS 2005, but it had fewer options.  While you don't have to change anything for the build agent to work in the ...