Last week I received a "Logical Disk Free Space is low" alert from Operations Manager for my TFS 2010 build server (DAZZLER). After a few minutes investigating the issue, I discovered that my "Builds" folder was consuming a little over 2 GB of storage. Note that DAZZLER only has a 23 GB virtual hard...

Last year I wrote a post about building Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 solutions on a Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2010 build server , which talked about copying various SharePoint assemblies to a "Reference Assemblies" folder and adding a corresponding registry key for MSBuild to locate...

Another "hiccup" this week after upgrading my Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2008 environment to TFS 2010 ... This morning I discovered that when you upgrade a managed C++ project from Visual Studio 2008 to Visual Studio 2010, the project is updated automatically to target .NET Framework 4. Unlike most...

Here's another issue I encountered when upgrading my Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2008 environment to TFS 2010 ... While it's generally a good assumption that a solution that builds without error in Visual Studio 2008 (and on a TFS 2008 build server) will build without error after updating the solution...

After upgrading my Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2008 environment to TFS 2010 , my next step was to upgrade various Visual Studio solutions to the 2010 version and ensure they built successfully after the upgrade. Note that during the upgrade, I chose to rebuild the VM (DAZZLER) in my environment that...

In my previous post , I provided an overview of the process of upgrading from TFS 2008 (and Windows SharePoint Services v3) to TFS 2010 (and SharePoint Server 2010). In this post, I provide more details about the upgrade process. Note that if you are not upgrading, but rather installing a new instance...

This past weekend, I upgraded my Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2008 environment to TFS 2010. I also upgraded the TFS project sites to SharePoint Server 2010. Why the SharePoint upgrade? The TFS project sites previously ran on Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS v3) -- not Microsoft Office SharePoint...

A little over two years ago, I wrote a post about installing Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 , in which I mentioned setting the MaxPatchCacheSize registry setting to 0 (in order to save some significant disk space while installing the service pack). [Note that the credit for this trick really goes...

Last week I installed Visual Studio 2010 on my primary desktop. This morning, I opened my Fabrikam.Demo solution in the new version of Visual Studio, but chose not to upgrade the target framework when prompted by Visual Studio during the solution upgrade. In other words, I chose to leave the Target framework...

Yesterday we encountered a bug while trying to deploy a new SQL Server database from a Visual Studio database project using the VSDBCMD.EXE utility, following the prescriptive guidance on MSDN: How to: Prepare a Database for Deployment From a Command Prompt by Using VSDBCMD http://msdn.microsoft...

If you've ever worked with me on a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 project -- or if you've read my Sample Walkthrough of the DR.DADA Approach to SharePoint -- then you've probably seen the following comment: Note: Referenced assemblies must be specified with a path corresponding...

In my previous post , I briefly mentioned the Code Analysis feature of Visual Studio in the context of using check-in policies with Team Foundation Server (TFS). However, there's a lot more to talk about with regards to using Code Analysis. If you are ever find yourself "starting from a clean slate...

In a previous post , I mentioned how I use SourceGear's DiffMerge instead of the out-of-the-box tool that comes with Team Foundation Server (which is also called DiffMerge). If you haven't at least evaluated the SourceGear alternative, I definitely advise you to take a look. The other "add-in" for...

It occurred to me this morning that while I previously shared some details on how I manage my MSDN blog , I've never shared my method for formatting code for the Web. Actually, calling it "my method" is definitely a bit of a stretch. I certainly didn't come up with the approach but rather refined...

During the more than three years I spent helping Agilent Technologies migrate their Internet site from their legacy, proprietary platform to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007, we unfortunately never used Team Foundation Server (TFS). Instead, we used Visual SourceSafe (VSS) in combination...

Yesterday I introduced the concept of linked files in Visual Studio solutions with a follow-up on my recommendation for configuring a custom dictionary to eliminate CA1704 code analysis warnings. Another practical application of linked files is what I refer to as "shared assembly info" -- referring...

Whenever a new .NET assembly project is created in Visual Studio, a file named AssemblyInfo is created that contains attributes used to define the version of the assembly during compilation. Using assembly versions effectively enables various team members to identify deployed assemblies and helps...

In my previous post , I introduced the concept of linking files in Visual Studio solutions. A good use of this feature is specifying a custom dictionary for your solution. Once you enable Code Analysis on your projects, you are likely to encounter warnings similar to the following: MSBUILD ...

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post introducing my system for structuring Visual Studio solutions . However, I apparently forgot to post a follow-up providing additional details, such as configuring assembly versioning and what I like to call "shared assembly information." Before I can cover these...

Last summer, I added DiffMerge to my Toolbox and I haven't used WinDiff since. DiffMerge can do everything WinDiff can, plus a whole lot more -- like intra-line highlighting, merging, and comparing files using configurable rulesets (although you'll likely never need any more than those that come ...

Along with my Visual Studio macros for unloading/reloading projects in a solution , another macro that I use just as much, if not more frequently, is my CollapseAllItems() macro: Public Sub CollapseAllItems() Dim solutionExplorer As Window = _ DTE.Windows.Item(Constants.vsWindowKindSolutionExplorer...

As promised in a post last week, here are the macros that I use to quickly unload or reload dozens of projects in a large Visual Studio solution. Hmmm, perhaps effortlessly is a better word choice -- considering I might need to wait 30 seconds or so for all of the projects to unload or reload. Here...

As I mentioned in a post last week, I often use macros in Visual Studio to automate development tasks. Before sharing some of my most frequently used macros, however, I wanted to first introduce the method I use to trace events and log messages while running various macros. Take a look at the following...

As I noted in my previous post , I typically work with "large" Visual Studio solutions. Note that I put this in quotes, because the definition of "large" will likely vary widely based on your individual experience. Note that I'm not referring to "large" like the source for the .NET Framework itself,...

Since I seem to be on a roll this morning with blogging, I figured I might as well get one more post in before moving on to my "day job." During the process of authoring a different post earlier today, I stumbled across a bug while using the Code Metrics feature in Visual Studio 2008. After clicking...