Everything you want to know about Visual Studio ALM and Farming
Brian Harry is a Microsoft Technical Fellow working as the Product Unit Manager for Team Foundation Server. Learn more about Brian.
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This afternoon we published the 2010 release candidate for MSDN subscribers. You can download it here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/dd582936.aspx. While the release candidate doesn't include every SKU, it includes most everything you might want to look at, including: VS (Pro, Premium and Ultimate), .NET 4 (Client and Full), TFS, Team Explorer, VS SDK and more.
It should be available to everyone by Wednesday - it takes a little longer to propagate to the Microsoft public download site.
Once you've used it for a while, we'd really appreciate your feedback on our RC survey.
And, of course, you can file any issues you find on the VS Connect site.
We've put a ton of work into the Release Candidate. We've been working hard since Beta 2 on both stability and performance. I've been using the RC build on my netbook for the last week or so and I have to say it really seems to be looking good. It's still not quite done yet. We're still fixing bugs and addressing a last few performance issues but if all the SLCTP feedback we've gotten is any indicator, then I really believe most of you will be very happy with it.
In the vein of not quite finished yet, we did find one pretty nasty crashing bug after we signed off on the RC. It happens with multi-touch devices and some screen readers. We're working on a patch for those of you who need it. I'll let you know when it is available. In the last week I've been using it on my netbook, I haven't had a single crash and I think I've only shut it down once.
Good luck and please let us know what you think!
Brian
Hi,
Any special instructions for upgrading from Beta2? Uninstall and install?
10x.
I meant upgrade for TFS...
I just blogged a reference to a document that describes the various things to consider while upgrading.
Hi Brian! Thanks for your hard work :-)
Q: What about Test Professional and Lab Management SKUs? Especially those two are the most interesting ones for me... Are you going to provide a prerelease build of those at all? Unfortunately we need to evaluate those SKUs as well before we can decide which SKUs to buy.
Can we use VS 2010 RC with TFS 2010 Beta 2, while we plan the upgrade?
Yes, we'll be releasing an RC of Test Professional. There was some hiccup with the uploading of it that caused it to be delayed a day or two. Everything else you need for lab is already there: TFS and the agents.
You will find that there are some issues with mixing Beta 2 and RC in various ways. It's not a scenario we tested thoroughly and we're going to start an FAQ on our forum so we can update issues that people find in real time.
The biggest issue is that you must not install Beta 2 TFS and RC VS (or vice versa) on the same machine. It will definitely cause DLL mismatch problems.
I'd also strongly recommend that you keep your build servers matching your TFS server.
However, to your specific question, yes, we believe that using an RC client from a different machine to access a Beta 2 server should work fine except for a few corner cases which we'll document on the FAQ.
Just curious, will there be a RC release of the TFS power tools? Or can we use the beta2 power tools?
So this is 32bit only? Is there a 64bit version that will be released?
Hey Brian, thanks for answering!
Still, I'm a bit worried about Lab Management because I've heard/read several times that it would be available as separate SKU. For example, Ed Glas lists it as separate server SKU [1].
So, what is it and what does it contain? Would be great if you could clarify and maybe even line up the official communication, because it seems like nobody really knows about it until I ask... :)
Best regards, Ooh
[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/edglas/archive/2010/02/07/vs-2010-sku-lineup-and-pricing-finalized.aspx
We are trying to figure out if we can get out an RC compatible version of the Power Tools. We may not be able to. We are trying to make sure we have them ready for RTM and that may mean having to sacrifice the RC version. I'll let you know if anything changes.
TFS has both a 32-bit and a 64-bit version. .NET, of course has both. VS is 32 bit. I'm not sure which component you were asking about.
Brian - you didn't mention in your response to the question about Power Tools whether or not the Beta 2 version would work with RC. We're already live on Beta 2 and were planning to migrate to RC as soon as possible, but we use the power tools to enforce specifying a work item selected from a query on check-in. If there's not going to be a new release of PT for RC, can we use the B2 PT to still enforce the check-in policy?
How about Device development/compact framework?
I brian,
i'm starting to use RC version in real scenario and i have 2 question for you :
1) it's possible to customize TFS web parts (for example : add custom button to "query web part")?
2) using "query web part" i notice that we can select workitems and automatically send via mail; can i customize the format of e-mail (columns to show etc....)?
Thank in advance,
Andrea
You can customize the web part queries using standard Sharepoint web part customization. I don't have the portal in front of me right now but I believe you can access the customization by clicking on the little triangle to the right of the webpart title.
Yes, you can customize the notification email. There are limits to what you can include in it. The email is generate by running an XSLT over an XML change notification. The change notification only includes "core" fields (like title) and any field that actually changed. You'll find the XSLT in the TFS server installation. I believe it's called WorkItemChangedEvent.xsl and WorkItemChangedEvent.plaintextXsl.