Buck Hodges

Azure DevOps (formerly VSTS and Team Foundation Server)

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 ...

Dave McKinstry on building database projects

July 19, 2007 Jul 19, 2007 07/19/07

Buck Hodges

Dave McKinstry has written a three-part series on building database projects. He includes information on building in TFS Build as well. Check it out!Technorati tags: tfs, team foundation, team build, vsts for database professionals...

Orcas: Unattended installation of the build agent

July 7, 2007 Jul 7, 2007 07/7/07

Buck Hodges

You can install the build agent (aka Build SKU) without going through the setup UI if you do the following. Thanks to Tony Edwards for this information. Edit the msiproperty.ini. Note that as of Beta 2, the ones that are in there are bogus and are not used. You have to add two new ones. This will be fixed before ...

How to enable code coverage without a test list

July 5, 2007 Jul 5, 2007 07/5/07

Buck Hodges

Aaron pointed out this post by Ben Day that talks about using the RunConfigFile property with a build that runs tests without using test lists (.vsmdi files). It all boils down to looking like the following (in Orcas, you would specify the $(OutDir) part in the TestContainer's Include attribute, whereas you don't in the TFS 2005 ...

New home for the AssemblyInfo task

July 3, 2007 Jul 3, 2007 07/3/07

Buck Hodges

The AssemblyInfo task has a new home, because the CodeGallery portion of GoDotNet is being phased out. You can now find it here in the GotDotNet User Samples.The AssemblyInfo task is useful for updating assembly version numbers as part of your build. Aaron Hallberg explains how to use it with Team Build in his post, Team Build...

MSDN chat with the VSTS (including TFS!) product group is today!

July 3, 2007 Jul 3, 2007 07/3/07

Buck Hodges

The first chat is at 1:00 PM Eastern time, so I'm planning to be in that one. 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 upcoming Orcas CTP. We ...

Orcas: Scheduled builds now support building even when there are no changes

June 6, 2007 Jun 6, 2007 06/6/07

Buck Hodges

Back in February, I wrote a post on the build scheduling feature that we've added for Orcas. In that post, I stated that we designed it such that the scheduled build only occurs if there has been a checkin that affects the build. Based on feedback, we changed it so that you have the option to force the scheduled build to run even if ...

Specs for a CCTray equivalent for Team Build and TFS Hosting

June 6, 2007 Jun 6, 2007 06/6/07

Buck Hodges

Jim Lamb has posted a couple of specs recently. The first is a Windows tray app that notifies you when builds complete, like CCTray does for CruiseControl.Net. Due to the time constraints of the Orcas release, we were not able to implement this for the product, but we are considering releasing it as a power tool for Orcas, in ...

SDC MSBuild tasks library is now on CodePlex (moved from GotDotNet)

May 30, 2007 May 30, 2007 05/30/07

Buck Hodges

Last August, I posted a set of links to sites with MSBuild tasks for all sorts of things you might need to run your build. The SDC Tasks Library, which was part of Microsoft Services (UK) Enterprise Solutions Build Framework (SBF) on the GotDotNet, is now on CodePlex. SDC Tasks Library Project DescriptionThis is the latest...

Buck Hodges

Team Build - Buck Hodges