Buck Hodges
Azure DevOps (formerly VSTS and Team Foundation Server)
Latest posts
Opportunity to provide feedback on Community Technology Previews (CTPs)
Brian Harry would like your feedback on how and when we do CTPs. Be sure to post comments on his blog! Feedback on VS Community Technology Previews (CTPs) We recently had an internal email thread with some people on our advisory councils giving us feedback on our CTP process. There was some interesting and somewhat surprising feedback. I wanted to solicit broader feedback from the community on what you want from the CTP process. Here's some questions to get you thinking about it: tags: tfs, team foundation server, vsts, team system, ctp
How to run tests in a build without test metadata files and test lists (.vsmdi files)
[UPDATE 6/16/2010] The VSTS 2008 release added support for test containers (/testcontainer) in the product, and the 2010 release added support for test categories. This post now only applies to TFS 2005. Since the beginning, running tests in Team Build (or MSBuild in general) has meant having to use .vsmdi files to specify the tests to run. Tons of people have complained about it, as it's a burden to create and edit the files, as either VSTS for Testers or the full suite is required in the 2005 release, and merging changes to the file is painful when multiple developers are updating the fil...
Moving the TFS SharePoint site to another server
Brian Harry talks about the documentation on how to move your TFS SharePoint installation to a different server. It's important to note that he calls this out as not being a trivial undertaking, so you'll want to be extremely cautious. Moving your TFS SharePoint site We've gotten tons of requests since we shipped TFS v1.0 from customers who want more flexibility with the configuration of the SharePoint server that TFS uses. Some want to use a SharePoint web farm that they already have. Others want to use a pre-existing web site. And still others want to change the port # or not have a Shar...
A checkin policy to detect that the build is broken in a CI environment
One important aspect of Continuous Integration is getting notification that the build is broken. One common way is via a desktop notification from an application like TfsAlert that listens for events (or polls if there isn't a TFS-style event notification mechanism).Ideally, the build or unit test break would be noticed as soon as it happens, so that the problem can be fixed before other checkins pile up. Clark Sell has come up with a checkin policy that detects that the last build failed and produces a policy failure when that happens. That makes it pretty hard to say, "But I didn't know a...
Getting desktop notifications for TFS events
Clark Sell has created a home on CodePlex for a useful desktop notification tool called TfsAlert. TfsAlert is a .Net 3.0 smart client which monitors for user selected TFS events and will display a balloon window in the Windows TaskBar Notification Area. It is built on top of WCF where you can subscribe to any TFS event you feel fit. It's initial focus is around Team Build management but will also include features around Work Item tracking.You can get the code, but there's not a binary available yet. This project is the result of his desire to have something equivalent to the desktop notification tool u...
Visual Studio Team System Chat – Wednesday, Nov. 8th
Join members of the Visual Studio Team System product group to discuss features available in Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, Team Editions for Architects, Developers, Database Pros, and Testers. In addition, discuss what's new in the latest Community Technology Preview (CTP). November 8, 200610:00 - 11:00 A.M. Pacific TimeAdditional Time Zones Add to Calendar
Project Server 2003 – Team Foundation connector released
This was released today. Here's the announcement from the GotDotNet workspace. ANNOUNCING THE VISUAL STUDIO TEAM SYSTEM - PROJECT SERVER CONNECTOR! We are pleased to announce general availability of the Project Server 2003 – Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2005 Connector application. The Connector can be downloaded here: http://www.avanadeadvisor.com/TFS-ProjectServerConnector.zip. The Connector is largely based on the sample Project Server 2003 – Visual Studio Team Foundation Server Beta 2 Connector available on GotDotNet. The Connector is also available as a part of the Avanade...
Updated list of continuous integration tools for TFS
I've updated my post More continuous integration with Team Build to include tools released after that post was written.tags: tfs, team foundation server, team build
An Introduction to Team Foundation Server Version Control from a Visual SourceSafe User’s Perspective
Steven St. Jean has just posted a great document that helps users make the move to Team Foundation Server's version control. While his goal is to help VSS users, this document will help users moving from a lot of other source control systems as well, such as Star Team. He includes lots of screen shots.I'd highly recommend this to folks who are trying to learn how to use TFS version control and are coming from a version control system like VSS that lacks pending changes, changesets, workspaces, and other concepts that TFS has. It's not going to tell you how to administer your ...