Buck Hodges
Azure DevOps (formerly VSTS and Team Foundation Server)
Latest posts
Tools for TFS on CodePlex: TeamReview and Info Kiosk
In the past I've written posts on tools for TFS on CodePlex. I'm happy to say that there are now too many to show in a post. I'd encourage you to take a look using this query for TFS on CodePlex. A couple of people have sent me email about new tools for TFS on CodePlex, and I thought I'd mention them. here. TeamReview The first one is TeamReview. Here's part of the description from the main page. Using Work Items to facilitate the code review process creates a completely in-IDE code review experience, the ability to project-manage the code review tasks, and the opportunity to get new value...
New blog by the Team Foundation Server global support team
The fine folks that support our customers have started a new blog: Developer Support Team Foundation Server. With posts by Trevor Hancock, Jim Saunders, and others on topics ranging from issues with TFS to the BPA (Best Practices Analyzer), you'll want to subscribe to this blog. They also plan to post monthly summaries of publicly released hotfixes (patches).Here's a sample of some of their recent posts. Check it out!Technorati Tags: team foundation server,support
Why is the TFS 2008 version control security dialog blank?
If you install Service Pack 1 for .NET 3.5 on the server (application tier) without also installing Service Pack 1 for TFS 2008, you will not be able to view permissions in version control. None of your data has been lost. What has happened is that the code in ASP.NET that serializes the permission data on the server does not work properly when .NET 3.5 SP1 is installed, resulting in empty lists being returned to the client. TFS 2008 SP1 contains a change that makes it work. Your choices are either to uninstall SP1 for .NET 3.5 or install SP1 for TFS 2008. Technorati Tags: team foundation serv...
TFS 2008 SP1: New setting to delete a build without deleting the build label
We've heard from a few customers that they would prefer not to have the build labels deleted when builds are deleted. In Team Foundation Server 2008 SP1 we added a feature to control whether build labels are deleted when the build is deleted. This feature is really a stop-gap measure, and it changes the behavior for build deletion on the entire server (i.e., you cannot change it for particular build definitions). In TFS 2010, we've added GUI options to allow you to control this for each build definition, and the setting is stored in the database along with the build definition.To use the feature...
TFS Build 2010: Build summary screen shots
The build summary view (sometimes called the build report) in TFS 2005 and 2008 leaves a lot to be desired. We wanted to rework it in TFS 2008 but lacked the time. Well, we've completely revamped it for TFS 2010. Chris Burrows has posted screen shots he captured from Jim Lamb's interview and screencast on TFS Build 2010 (it's basically a hybrid, which works really well). I'll post one of the screen shots here, which shows a compilation error. For the rest and the explanation of this one, take a look at Chris' post. You'll be able to see it in action in the new CTP that'll be released thi...
MSBuild Extensions Pack now available
Mike Fourie has released the first version of MSBuild Extensions Pack on CodePlex. This is a great collection of quality tasks for MSBuild that you can also use in Team Foundation Build. The MSBuild Extension Pack is the successor to the FreeToDev MSBuild Tasks Suite and provides a collection of over 170 MSBuild tasks designed for the .NET 3.5 Framework. A high level summary of what the tasks currently cover includes the following: Mike's goal is to make this the standard MSBuild task repository. He's looking to add more tasks and make these better. If you're interested in contributing, send him...
Pre-checkin validation tool for Team Foundation Build 2008: TFS Check-in Validation Tool
Mohammad Jalloul, a developer on the Developer Division Engineering team, has released a new tool on CodePlex called TFS Check-in Validation Tool. This tool provides the ability to have a checkin validating by a build prior to being checked in. This is similar to a feature in TFS 2010 called Gated Checkin, which is integrated into VS and TFS (you can learn more about Gated Checkin and other TFS Build 2010 features in this video). With both of these the goal is to prevent build breaks from being checked in by validating them beforehand. I refer to this as "pessimistic" continuous integratio...
Improving the performance of the work item tracking client with TFS 2008 SP1
Martin Woodward has written a great post that describes a feature that was added in TFS 2008 SP1 to reduce the amount of work item tracking metadata cached by the client. Depending on the number of team projects on your server and the number of fields and rules used by all work item types, this could result in a nice performance gain, particularly for remote users. Filtering WIT Client Meta-data In TFS 2008 SP1, a new feature was quietly introduced, WIT Client Metadata Filtering. This feature could boost the performance of your Team Foundation Server experience, reduce the amount of traffic flowi...
How to set up TFS 2008 SP1 to use TSWA links in checkin notification emails
One of the new features available in TFS 2008 SP1 is that a TSWA URL can be configured in the server so that checkin notification emails will have links to the Team System Web Access page for the changeset, which allows you to see the diffs for each of the changes. You can find the documentation for this feature at How to: Configure Work Item Hyperlinks to use Team System Web Access. You must also install the following fix (QFE) in order to use the feature: KB957196 - Checkin event e-mail alert notification doesn't work (download). Without the fix, turning on the new feature will result in checkin no...