2/14 Update: Please read this post to apply a fix for the expiring SQL Express Trial included in this virtual machine.
I’m very pleased to announce the availability of the Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview ALM Virtual Machine along with 6 hands-on-labs / demo scripts. This marks an exciting milestone in our journey towards RTM. You can now roll up your sleeves and start learning about the many capabilities we announced at TechEd North America earlier this year and have been talking about in greater depth this week at BUILD.
Before I get into what’s included, there are a few quick limitations to disclose:
With the limitations out of the way, onto the fun stuff…
This virtual machine is configured with:
There are six hands-on-labs for you to take a scripted approach towards learning this content. These labs double as demo scripts in case you want to show off these features to others:
The files above are included in the download set below, so you don’t have to follow the individual links above if you plan on batch downloading all of the files in this set.
UPDATE: There are now also DemoMates available for these hands-on-labs / demo scripts as well. DemoMates allow you to learn or demonstrate these scenarios without needing to use the virtual machine. You can access the DemoMates here.
Downloading the virtual machine and labs: I suggest using a download manager for these files since they are very large. My download manager of choice is Free Download Manager. You can use your own favorite download manager, but you may need to adapt the instructions below as appropriate.
1. Download and install Free Download Manager. This utility provides: - Auto-resume support for interrupted downloads. - Multiple simultaneous download streams for (usually) a much faster download experience. - As the name implies, it's completely free. 2. Select the URL’s below and copy (CTRL+C) them to your clipboard. ###Start - Do Not Include This Line### http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/9/2/A9253B14-5F23-4BC8-9C7E-F5199DB5F831/Agile Project Management in Team Foundation Server 11.docx http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/9/2/A9253B14-5F23-4BC8-9C7E-F5199DB5F831/Building the Right Software - Generating Storyboards and Collecting Stakeholder Feedback with Visual Studio 11.docx http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/9/2/A9253B14-5F23-4BC8-9C7E-F5199DB5F831/Diagnosing Issues in Production with IntelliTrace and Visual Studio 11.docx http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/9/2/A9253B14-5F23-4BC8-9C7E-F5199DB5F831/Exploratory Testing and Other Enhancements in Microsoft Test Manager 11.docx http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/9/2/A9253B14-5F23-4BC8-9C7E-F5199DB5F831/Making Developers More Productive with Team Foundation Server 11.docx http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/9/2/A9253B14-5F23-4BC8-9C7E-F5199DB5F831/Unit Testing with Visual Studio 11 - MSTest, NUnit, xUnit.net, and Code Clone.docx http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/9/2/A9253B14-5F23-4BC8-9C7E-F5199DB5F831/VisualStudio11ALMDeveloperPreview.part01.exe http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/9/2/A9253B14-5F23-4BC8-9C7E-F5199DB5F831/VisualStudio11ALMDeveloperPreview.part02.rar http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/9/2/A9253B14-5F23-4BC8-9C7E-F5199DB5F831/VisualStudio11ALMDeveloperPreview.part03.rar http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/9/2/A9253B14-5F23-4BC8-9C7E-F5199DB5F831/VisualStudio11ALMDeveloperPreview.part04.rar http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/9/2/A9253B14-5F23-4BC8-9C7E-F5199DB5F831/VisualStudio11ALMDeveloperPreview.part05.rar http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/9/2/A9253B14-5F23-4BC8-9C7E-F5199DB5F831/VisualStudio11ALMDeveloperPreview.part06.rar http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/9/2/A9253B14-5F23-4BC8-9C7E-F5199DB5F831/VisualStudio11ALMDeveloperPreview.part07.rar http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/9/2/A9253B14-5F23-4BC8-9C7E-F5199DB5F831/VisualStudio11ALMDeveloperPreview.part08.rar http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/9/2/A9253B14-5F23-4BC8-9C7E-F5199DB5F831/VisualStudio11ALMDeveloperPreview.part09.rar http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/9/2/A9253B14-5F23-4BC8-9C7E-F5199DB5F831/VisualStudio11ALMDeveloperPreview.part10.rar http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/9/2/A9253B14-5F23-4BC8-9C7E-F5199DB5F831/VisualStudio11ALMDeveloperPreview.part11.rar http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/9/2/A9253B14-5F23-4BC8-9C7E-F5199DB5F831/VisualStudio11ALMDeveloperPreview.part12.rar http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/9/2/A9253B14-5F23-4BC8-9C7E-F5199DB5F831/VisualStudio11ALMDeveloperPreview.part13.rar http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/9/2/A9253B14-5F23-4BC8-9C7E-F5199DB5F831/VisualStudio11ALMDeveloperPreview.part14.rar http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/9/2/A9253B14-5F23-4BC8-9C7E-F5199DB5F831/Working with the Visual Studio 11 ALM Developer Preview Virtual Machine.docx ###End - Do Not Include This Row In Your Selection### 3. Launch the user interface for Free Download Manager (either from the Start Menu or via the system tray icon if FDM is already running). 4. Click File -> Import -> Import List of URLs from Clipboard. 5. When prompted for a download group, accept the default and click OK. 6. You are now free to minimize Free Download Manager while the files download. By default, they will be saved to c:\downloads. 7. Expand the files and self-extracting RAR set and see the “Working with…” document for more instructions.
While you are waiting for your downloads to finish, here are some screenshots from the VM and labs to whet your appetite…
The virtual machine is based around 2 sample web applications being built by our friends at Fabrikam Fiber – a provider of cable and telecom services. They are using Visual Studio application lifecycle management tools to manage their source code, run their builds, test their web sites, and plan and track the project.
The new Storyboarding tool will make it easier to refine requirements and ensure that your team is building the right software before you write a line of code. The “Building the Right Software” lab will show off this experience.
The Fabrikam Fiber Web Team has uses the TFS Web Access portal to help them collaborate more effectively as a team.
The Fabrikam Fiber Web Team maintains a common backlog within web access to track future work and begin assigning this work to iterations.
The Fabrikam Fiber Web Team uses the new task board in web access to track work throughout the project. Check out the “Agile project management…” lab to learn all about the new project management dashboards.
Team Explorer has been completely re-imagined in this release to make it more easily to work with source control, work items, and more. You can even “suspend” what you were working on if you get interrupted and easily come back to it later. And you’re going to love the new local workspaces capability. Check out the “Making Developers More Productive…” lab for a tour of these features.
Visual Studio 11 will enable 3rd party unit testing providers such as NUnit and xUnit.net to work right alongside the existing MSTEST unit tests. You can even mix and match these within the same solution! Check out the “Unit Testing” lab to learn more.
Also in the “Unit Testing” lab, you will also discover the powerful new code clone capability. This allows you to find semantically similar blocks of code; this might unlock new refactoring opportunities, or indicate blocks of code which need common a common bug fix.
Microsoft Test Manager 11 provides even greater support for exploratory testing. This allows you to put your tester’s hat on, find bugs, and Microsoft Test Manager will automatically capture rich diagnostics in the background which can be surfaced to developers if a bug if found, or used to create formal test cases for subsequent test passes. Learn more in the “Exploratory Testing” lab.
Finally, we know that application lifecycle management doesn’t end when you produce a release and hand it off to the operations team. Visual Studio 11 extends the capabilities of IntelliTrace to allow you to capture rich IntelliTrace files from machines running in your production environment using low-impact PowerShell commandlets. This gives you rich, historical debugging information right at your fingertips – allowing you to see exactly why bugs are happening in your production environment.
I hope you will enjoy playing with these bits as much as I have. Since this is our first release, I am sure you will find areas of the VM and hands-on-labs / demo scripts which could benefit from enhancements and fixes. Please let me know how I can improve this to better meet your needs.
Once again, Great Work Brian!
Really cool !! Thanks Bryan :D
Thanks for sharing, man! It's really awesome!
Exceptional - great work Brian!!
Download Rigth Now !!!! Thanks a lot
Thanks for sharing the VM with the hands on lab, it’s really awesome :-)
Thanks for sharing,
But the blue screen appear and disappear quickly and I can not run
What do you expect .. Where is the problem?
@JeffKevin, you're most welcome! Sorry you're having trouble. Did you follow the "Working with..." document to import this into Hyper-V? Note that you must import this virtual machine, don't just attach the VHD file to a new virtual machine. Some other things to try:
- Do you use Windows Server 2008 R2? With Service Pack 1? If not, I suggest upgrading; there are numerous improvements for Hyper-V in that release.
- Do you use other Hyper-V virtual machines successfully?
I have had dozens of emails from people saying that this worked for them, so hopefully we can get it working for you, too.
Brian
Thanks for sharing. Great work Brian!!
Thanks for Great Work
Is there a VM for Virtual PC (Windows 7)?
Maybe this VM can be used by it? (i've tried just to asign the VHD but the VM keeps on restarting...)
@Yuval, nope. Virtual PC is 32-bit only, this is a 64-bit image which was built for Hyper-V.
@Brian - Code review is indeed an exciting new feature introduced in TFS 11. I have found some bugs and missing features in my assessment that I have blogged about here http://tinyurl.com/3apzeh4. Cheers, Tarun *** And my earlier comment at the top of the comment list is still valid :-) ***
Unfortunately the downloaded version of Virtual hard disk requires Hyper V server.. So it is very hard to get hand on.. Because to setup the Hyper V in desktop is major challenge like hardware compatibility or dual boot etc., I am not sure why Microsoft not support the desktop version of Virtualization like Virtual PC.. After downloading the entire stuff only I came to know.. Any work around is available to explore this..Cheers
@Senthilraj, that's right; it says so at the very top of my blog post. I will try to make this more clear. Virtual PC does not support 64-bit operating systems, and Windows Server 2008 R2 (which is the operating system used for my virtual machine) is 64-bit only. In the future, client operating systems from Microsoft starting with Windows 8 will support Hyper-V natively. But the current developer preview of Windows 8 does not work with my virtual machine. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.