Today the Team Foundation Server team announced the release of version 1.2 of Team Foundation Power Tools (formally known as Power Toys). What are the Power Toys you say? They're extra functionality delivered out of band for Team Foundation Server including some really useful stuff (get changes for changeset, consolidated annotation of a file, command line history, and rollback to name a few).

In the latest release they have included support for Windows Vista (woo-hoo!) and several new tools:

[from announcement]

  • Workspace Command (tfpt.exe) - Use the workspace command for additional workspace operations not supported in the currently shipping Team Foundation Server command-line tool (tf.exe).
  • Treeclean Command - Use the treeclean command to see and optionally delete files in the current directory and all subdirectories that are not under version control.
  • Process Template Editor - A tool that provides a user interface for authoring work item types and some of the associated process template components.
  • Check-in Policy Pack - A set of custom policies that address often expressed customer needs. For example, the Custom Path Policy allows you to filter the specific items upon which another policy acts.
  • Build Test Tools Task - An MSBuild task that allows you to run unit tests by specifying the DLLs  or a file name pattern in the TfsBuild.proj file instead of using .vsmdi files to specify which tests to run.

One thing that I am very excited for is the new path policy (included in the Check-In Policy Pack). This allows policies to be applied to specific paths in team foundation server (i.e. don't check for valid unit tests on a directory with 3rd party source code). The other policy I'm excited for is the work item query policy—my project teams have several builds operating concurrently within the same team project and sometimes a private build is executed and picks up work items and associations not belonging to it specifically creating false relationships and throwing off some of our reporting.

To download version 1.2, go to the Microsoft Download center at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=7324c3db-658d-441b-8522-689c557d0a79&displaylang=en Help for the new tools can be found on the TFPT Forums at http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=930&SiteID=1

Additional information on the tools in depth can be found on Rich's Developer Tools Blog