When you run get for your entire workspace without any argument, you are requesting that the server give you the latest set of files.  Later you might wonder what changeset was used in that get.  To figure that out, you can use the following history command from the root (top) of your workspace...

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...

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...

We've now released the final version of TSWA 2008 SP1, which had previously been released as a community technology preview (CTP). There are some fantastic new features in this release, including the ability for users without CALs to create work items. Also, this release includes 10 languages: Japanese...

One of the new features we've added to TSWA for the SP1 release is the ability to create URLs that are effectively work item templates by virtue of the fact that they have the values for the work items embedded in the URL itself. Since constructing these URLs manually is really painful, we have an...

Hakan has announced the availability of the new TSWA community technology preview (CTP) in his post, What's New in TSWA 2008 SP1 . Personally, I would say this release is beta quality or better, so don't let the CTP designation scare you too much. Also released is the first CTP release of what we...

The documentation for the team build 2008 object model is now available as a CHM file. Later this year, I'm told that the MSDN web site will be updated. http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/f/8/5f872c2e-4221-410b-b86e-4c3cd831b0c4/Team Foundation Build Managed Reference.chm After you download it...

Part of our plan for the TSWA 2008 Power Tool is to release localized versions. Japanese is the first language to become available. Chinese, German, Spanish, French, Italian, and Korean are currently planned for release over the next month. Here's the download page in Japanese, along with a link to it...

There's a great new video on the MSDN web site by Richard Hundhausen that goes over the new features in Team Foundation Build 2008. It's one of the featured videos this week. The video covers the major new features and provides a great introduction to the product. How Do I: Learn the New Features and...

Today we have released the final version of the Team System Web Access (TSWA) 2008 power tool ! Team System Web Access provides a web interface to Team Foundation Server 2008. Here's a list of feature changes. Of course, we also fixed a number of bugs. New direct links : Previously, you could...

Like Team Explorer, Team System Web Access does not support work item templates yet (though you can get a power tool work item template add-in for Team Explorer 2005 -- look for power tools for TFS 2008 in December). However, you can use the "Create Copy of Work Item" feature to copy a work item that...

Let's say you're going through your bugs and want to ask someone a question about one of them. You can use Team System Web Access to send that person an email containing all of the work item's information and a link to it. To email a work item, open the work item in TSWA. Go to the Tools menu shown below...

[Update 10/6/2008] In addition to the default search behavior described below, TSWA 2008 SP1 adds Outlook-style search capability, which is described here . Have you ever wanted a quick way to find the bugs containing some word? Team System Web Access comes to your rescue. In the upper left corner...

Sara Ford has a Visual Studio Tip of the Day series going. I thought I'd publish some tips on using Team System Web Access, and this is the first. I don't think I'll be able to do a tip per day. Calling it a "TSWA tip a few times a week" just doesn't sound that great. So I'll just leave it as TSWA Tips...

[UPDATE 12/21/07] The build notification tool has now become part of the TFS Power Tools for TFS 2008 ! It has new features and quite a few fixes (not to mention that it's a signed binary), so I've removed the attachment from this post. We would have loved to have included in TFS 2008 a build notification...

Jon Liperi, a tester on Team Build, has put together the post below that explains a number of the issues around using Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals (DBPro) with TFS Build. Jon previously worked on the DBPro team, so he knows his way around it quite well. Here are the issues that...

I wanted to highlight the TSWA for TFS 2005 FAQ since it contains good information, including how to switch between Windows authentication and forms authentication, turning off forms authentication, and how to construct the URL to a work item using the work item's ID. Visual Studio Team System Web...

Patrick Carnahan, a developer on Team Build, put together the following guide to the basic, as well as a few advanced, features of Team Build in TFS 2008. It's a great way to get started with continuous integration and other features in TFS 2008. Team Build – Continuous Integration One of the new...

In either TFS 2005 or TFS 2008, you can delete the test results published against a build ( How to: Publish Test Results ). However, discovering this feature may be difficult, and I didn't find it on MSDN in a quick search of the docs. What you'll need to do is to bring up the build details (aka the...

The following question came up today, and I thought it would be useful to post. One thing I didn't mention was what happens in the upgrade process when you move from a 2005 server to a 2008 server. The 2008 server stores in the database some properties that were previously stored either in the tfsbuild...

If part of your build process is to check in a file, such as an updated version file, you wouldn't want that checkin to kick off another build. You'd be stuck in an infinite loop. To prevent that problem, simply put the string ***NO_CI*** in the checkin comment. The code that examines a changeset...

Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2, including Team Foundation Server 2008, is now available for download . As mentioned in Soma's post , Beta 2, unlike beta 1, includes the "go live" provision in the license, meaning that you can use it in production. We've been using TFS 2008 beta 2 on our main internal dogfood...

A question came up a couple of times recently about an issue with the timestamps on the files involved in a build always being the current time. The issue is that folks have customized their deployment process to deploy only files where the timestamps are newer. Folks then ask for an option to have get...

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...

This week the following question came up. I've seen this come up before, and there are probably forum threads on it, but I figured I'd post it here. Bill Essary provided the answer to the question. As always, keep notes on what you do so that you can undo it if necessary. Question Is there a...