I just helped someone today with this common problem... "How do I get my custom list process parameter to show something besides '(Collection)' in the Process Parameter property grid?" The answer is really simple if you are familiar with the WinForms...

Someone asked a question about how to do something in MSBuild the other day. They were using the UpgradeTemplate.xaml, so there build process was done almost entirely in MSBuild. What they wanted to do was fairly simple to do in a Task, but they didn...

This post is for those that are pretty familiar with the TFS Build features in Visual Studio. If you aren't, this may not make any sense. So, it's Friday and you just made a gated check-in, but you can't leave until your build finishes. So, you open...

If you use the TFS Build Automation Object Model, then you may have noticed that we have objects that are related to Controllers and Agents, but that don't show up in the UI. These objects are called Build Service Host objects or IBuildServiceHost objects...

Okay, so I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago and exposed two of the menu guids for Build. Since then I have been asked for others, so here they all are... Menu Guid (we use the same guid for all build menus): {34586048-8400-472e-BBBF-3AE30AF8046E...

In this post, I just want to help those of you out there that have upgraded from 2008 and need to bulk update all of your definitions. In this particular example, I will be updating the retention policies to remove the deletion of the label with the deletion...

So, I have gotten this question a couple of times... "How can I add my own custom menu item to a TFS Build Automation context menu?" Yes, this is possible and not really that difficult. We even added some extensibility in 2010 to make this an even better...

So, there are several things I want to talk about, but they all boil down to the perf of the Log View in the Build Details window in Visual Studio. Unfortunately, if you have a large amount of data here, it slows down everything until it gets fully loaded...

So, I have been asked this very question a couple of times now which means it should be searchable for all :). In TFS Build 2008, all of the logic for building on the server was tucked away in a targets file for MSBuild. All Team Build did was to call...

So, I have been asked this question a couple of times now and so I decided to put it out there for everyone. If you are creating custom build templates that do a lot of looping or other work that seems to make the build log way too noisy, you may want...

So, I had someone ask this question about the process parameters on the Process tab of the Build Definition Editor - “How can I get the Advanced category above the Basic category?” I decided it would be better to share this with everyone, since it isn...

In some previous posts ( here and here ), I talked about ways to change the log view part of the build details view. This time I want to discuss how to change the Summary view. It is a little more difficult, but the extensibility is there for you to change...

I had a request recently on how to “Secure” a build from code. While I am still not sure there is a great way to do that. What I found is that there is next to no information on the TFS Security API. So, I thought I would post this code here...

If you haven’t noticed already in 2010. New build definitions no longer use the tfsBuild.proj file or the Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.targets file. With the switch to Windows Workflow as the base technology that the build process runs on we no longer...

I got a question today on how to access the process parameters of a build definition in 2010. If you haven’t looked at that property, yet, you might be surprised to find out it is just a string. Unfortunately, we chose to do it this way for various reasons...

First, what is the Custom Assembly Path? In TFS 2010, we added a feature to the Build infrastructure that will automatically copy dlls checked into version control to the Build Machine. This functionality was added so that the custom build process designer...

It was brought to my attention that the code I posted here no longer works in TFS Build 2010. So, I promised I would update the code. In doing so, I realized there were some things I should probably explain: 1) In TFS 2010, you can no longer simply...

The build definition dialog is now a window! Why is that so exciting? Well, let me tell you… Now you open two definitions side by side and copy information from one to the other! If you forget some bit of information, like where your solution file is...

In my previous posts, we discussed… Custom Process Parameters Process Parameter Metadata Custom Editors In this post, I want to continue this discussion of process parameters and explain how to use your own custom types for process parameters. Previously...

In the last post of this series, we added metadata to our custom process parameter and I described all of the metadata that you can use to describe your custom process parameters. I also mentioned that we would talk more about some of the more complicated...

This is a continuation of the Part 1 post . In the last post, we created a Hello World process template that uses a custom process parameter to pass in the text “Hello World!” And we showed that it worked pretty easily. But I skipped over something that...

What are process parameters? These are the objects that we pass into the build process that determines what will be built, what tests to run (and how), and all the other switches that decide what happens. How are they passed in? The process parameters...

In this post, I want to explain how you change the way that build information is displayed on the Build Details View. You can do some pretty crazy things if you really want to. We are just going to change the color of Build Messages. If you want more...

In TFS 2008, we had a lot of requests to make the Build Details View customizable. In 2010, we have taken the first step in that direction. In this post, I will explain how to change the Log View of the new Build Details View to show custom build information...

When you delete a build in Visual Studio 2010, you don’t just get a message box that says “Are you Sure?.” You get this… In 2010, you choose what you want to delete. You can delete any of the the following: Details – this is the database record itself...