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Stuff in the pipe for Team Foundation Server

Just a brief note about stuff coming down the pipe for TFS...

MSSCCI Provider

We are working on a new release of the MSSCCI provider.  It will have a variety of fixes for bugs that you have reported and that we have found internally.  Some of the notable improvements include:

  • Support for Enterprise Architect and PowerBuilder
  • GetLatest on Checkout support
  • Work items can be modified in the checkin window
  • Setup works on x64
  • Check-in lock is treated as exclusive
  • Parameters for external diff are passed in the same order as in Visual Studio 2005
  • Open from SCC and save to SCC operations are enhanced to behave much more like in Visual Studio 2005 and VSS

We're expecting to have this new MSSCCI release ready in the next couple of weeks.

TFS Service Pack 1

We're busy putting the finishing touches on TFS SP1.  The improvements roughly break down as follows...

Version Control, WorkItem Tracking and Datawarehouse performance/scale improvements - the majority of these have come from our continued internal deployment.  You can read one of my earlier blog posts for more detail on what kinds of things we've hit and addressed.  We're now seeing great results on our internal servers with these fixes.
 
"Extranet support" - We implemented an ISAPI filter that will allow the intranet to use NTLM and integrated auth while the extra net uses basic auth.  This enables TFS to be more easily deployed in environments where people on the internet need to be able to access TFS without having VPN.
 
WIT Custom Control support - This is a cool new feature.  It is a mechanism by which people can design work item forms that host custom controls.  The data behind the controls can either be persisted in WIT fields or elsewhere.  I'm hoping people go crazy with it and build some awesome custom controls.
 
Bug fixes for Office 2007 (Project and Excel - no Sharepoint 2007 support yet), Vista and the new WAP project support - These were all things that were pretty far from shipping when we shipped so it was not possible to work out all the kinks (bugs on both sides).  Now that  they are much closer and more stable we've been able to make them work well.
 
Bug fixes for Dr. Watson reports - We've been collecting and analyzing all of the crashes  that have been uploaded through Dr. Watson.  We fixed the top offenders that accounted for a significant majority of all crashes that customers have experienced/reported.

I don't have timing for SP1 to announce at this point but I'm expecting a Beta to be available for it in the not too distant future.

Brian

Published Thursday, June 15, 2006 8:35 AM by bharry

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# Novit

Thursday, June 15, 2006 10:52 AM by Lorenzo Barbieri @ UGIblogs!

# re: Stuff in the pipe for Team Foundation Server

Not sure I like the WIT idea. I had hoped that you would eventually use InfoPath to design the WIT forms (Infopath 2007 can be hosted, so the VS experience would be the same as today). This would give instant web access to WIT via Infopaths 2007 web support.

But it seems to me that allowing custom controls in WIT forms makes a full web story all the more difficult. Or am I missing something?
Thursday, June 15, 2006 11:12 AM by davidacoder

# re: Stuff in the pipe for Team Foundation Server

Will the next version of the Visual Studio SDK (V3 due in August) be the one documenting the WIT Custom Control support?

Will there be a "preview" (or a blog entry) filling us in on some of the details before then?

I like the idea of having more than the current set of field types (I'm dying for a grid). A little hesitant about how custom controls will affect web access (thinking TeamPlain).
Thursday, June 15, 2006 12:07 PM by Michael C

# re: Stuff in the pipe for Team Foundation Server

I think InfoPath is a possibility in the future but is definitely out of scope for a service pack oriented release.

We have designed the custom controls extensibility so that you can have different control implementations and the host can pick which one to use.  The Windows Forms host can pick one and a WebForms host could pick another (for example).  We will work with Team Plain (and others) to explain how we have done it and enable them to support control hosting.

Good question on the SDK thing.  I'll look into it and find out.

Yes, we will blog the details around the time that the SP Beta becomes available.
Thursday, June 15, 2006 12:43 PM by bharry

# re: Stuff in the pipe for Team Foundation Server

Ah, that is great to hear! Fully understand that InfoPath is too big for a SP, just was a bit worried that you "tie" your implementation too strictly to one presentation technology. But, you had thought about it already :)

I would also be quite interested to learn how you guys intened to integrate with WSS3. It appears to me that the introduction of content types would allow the whole WIT system to be based on WSS lists, which would actually be pretty cool (Automatic web access, Infopath forms, not an extra API for work items, but just the WSS list stuff, offline support etc). Are you thinking about that?

Also: Wasn't there talk that for Orcas the dev division would share every single spec during the design process etc? You must have started with that by now ;) Are you still planning on doing that?
Thursday, June 15, 2006 1:24 PM by davidacoder

# re: Stuff in the pipe for Team Foundation Server

I haven't looked at WSS3 closely yet.  The last time we looked at WSS lists they were not powerful enough to handle everything we need for work items.  I'll hook up with the people on our team responsible for that and see what the thinking is now.

Hmm, I do seem to recall Soma saying we'd be more transparent with specs.  We'll definitely share some if not all of our specs.  We haven't made it as far as you might think on the next version yet.  After the 2005 wave of prodcuts DevDiv went through a round of engineering process improvements.  We've been doing that for a few months now.  We will be done with it soon and will be starting on V.Next in earnest within the next month.  We should probably be able to start previewing some specs within a month or two.
Friday, June 16, 2006 2:12 PM by bharry

# re: Stuff in the pipe for Team Foundation Server


We decided not to impliment the WIT stuff because of some major limitations.  One of the bigger ones is that there was no "type to linked items.  I.e you couldn't like to a bug and know that it was something the item "depended on" or was a "child of" or "parent of" or if the bug was a like to a dupliacte or what.

Knowing the "depends on" links was critical for decent resource management.  In fact, there is no way to even pass the "links" to MS Project to do a proper gantt chart of your resource dependancies.

Is this kind of thing going to be addressed in SP1?
Friday, June 16, 2006 6:13 PM by Ray

# re: Stuff in the pipe for Team Foundation Server

Yes, we are aware of some of the limitations around linking.  We are planning to address them but that is beyond the scope of a service pack for us.  To be honest, putting any features at all into a service pack is a pretty novel concept for the Developer Division and we had to have a lot of conversations to get in the ones we did.  SPs are generally reserved for just fixing key customer identified bugs.  I'm of the mind we should do that and address important (but smallish) customer feature requests.  I hope to get into a pattern of releasing a few new features with every TFS SP that we do.  And we'll continue to do major releases as well.

Brian
Saturday, June 17, 2006 9:52 AM by bharry

# re: Stuff in the pipe for Team Foundation Server

Yes, lists in WSS2 could never handle the kind of stuff you need. But WSS3 is really powerfull: You get content types, which would correspond to your work item types, with inheritance etc. Lists can have workflow via the new Workflow stuff in .Net 3.0 (probably more powerful than the workflow things in TS right now). And of course Infopath for the forms stuff, web and rich client. Infopath 2007 can be hosted as an ActiveX, so that could solve the integration with VS.

Of course, in some ways it would be crazy to completly replace such an important part as your working WIT implementation. But then, if it could be pulled of, it would be quite a proof of a good systems architecture of yours, where different services can be replaced with new implementations.

Alright, enough future rambling ;) I really like the short term approach you take with the SP etc!
Monday, June 19, 2006 8:04 AM by davidacoder

# Team Foundation Server Service Pack 1 - Coming Soon

Brian Harry has recently blogged about what we can expect to see in the upcoming service pack for Team...
Monday, June 19, 2006 6:06 PM by My VSTS Blog

# [TFS] Team Foundation Server SP 1 will be soon available !

Brian Harry has just posted the news on his blog: Service Pack 1 of Team Foundation Server will be available...
Tuesday, June 20, 2006 2:56 AM by Thomas Lebrun

# re: Stuff in the pipe for Team Foundation Server

I hope it include some sdk changes. Like making some of the tfs dialogs public.
Will the gelatest+ checkout be inluded in the sp ?
Thursday, June 22, 2006 6:34 AM by Avi harush

# re: Stuff in the pipe for Team Foundation Server

I'm afraid to say that neither of those are changed in SP1.  We checkout still doesn't get the latest and we didn't make any more dialogs public.  Both of those are on our list of things to do but we haven't gotten to them yet.  Sorry about that.

Brian
Thursday, June 22, 2006 11:56 AM by bharry

# Team Foundation Server SP1 Beta Coming Soon

In Brian Harry’s recent Tech Ed 2006 and Stuff in the pipe for Team Foundation Server...
Tuesday, June 27, 2006 8:18 PM by Rob Caron

# re: Stuff in the pipe for Team Foundation Server

Did you kill the GC Handle bug?? I'ts driving us crazy!!
Wednesday, June 28, 2006 12:30 PM by Brett Bailey

# re: Stuff in the pipe for Team Foundation Server

Yes, the GC handle bug in the work item tracking object model is dead.  If you really need a fix, I believe you can get it by requesting at hotfix from CSS.  If not, the fix will be in SP1.

Brian
Thursday, June 29, 2006 12:24 PM by bharry

# newsBreaks.net » Microsoft readies Team Foundation Server service pack

PingBack from http://newsbreaks.net/archives/1438
Friday, June 30, 2006 10:52 PM by newsBreaks.net » Microsoft readies Team Foundation Server service pack

# Bry’s Blog » Blog Archive » Upcoming Team Foundation Server (TFS) Service Pack, Teamprise (using TFS from Eclipse, Apple)

PingBack from http://bryanandnoel.hintonweb.com/blog/1969/12/31/upcoming-team-foundation-server-tfs-service-pack-teamprise-using-tfs-from-eclipse-apple/
Tuesday, July 18, 2006 4:34 PM by Bry’s Blog » Blog Archive » Upcoming Team Foundation Server (TFS) Service Pack, Teamprise (using TFS from Eclipse, Apple)

# Getting ready for TFS SP1

As the date for the TFS SP1 Beta approaches, there’s one feature that will make TFS much easier...
Saturday, July 29, 2006 12:00 AM by My VSTS Blog

# Visual Studio Team Foundation Server Standardized as Enterprise-wide Service at Microsoft.

Recently I started compiling a list of the teams at Microsoft who are using Visual Studio Team System....
Tuesday, August 01, 2006 10:35 PM by Brian Keller: Technical Evangelist for Team System

# TFS 1.0 SP1

Visit http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry/archive/2006/06/15/632236.aspx for a hint of stuff coming down the
Wednesday, September 06, 2006 1:14 PM by Willy-Peter Schaub

# SP1 beta is now available

For Team Build users, I'll spare you the suspense and tell you that there are no meaningful changes in...
Tuesday, September 26, 2006 11:28 AM by Buck Hodges

# The TFS "extranet" ISAPI filter mechanics

What's this ISAPI filter thingy you're talking about? Here's some background via links: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/916845

Friday, October 27, 2006 12:57 PM by James Manning's blog

# re: Stuff in the pipe for Team Foundation Server

Will be available any connection to sharepoint / project server 2007? Is there any future SP plan to include these features?

Thursday, December 14, 2006 1:46 PM by Viviana

# re: Stuff in the pipe for Team Foundation Server

We are adding support for SharePoint 2007 in our Orcas release.

SP1 contains fixes to make our current MS Project support work with MS Project 2007.

We are looking into direct support for Project Server 2007 for a future version but have not announced and release plans at this point.

Brian

Friday, December 15, 2006 8:18 AM by bharry

# re: Stuff in the pipe for Team Foundation Server

Hi! Bharry

Is this Service pack out for installation,

Does it fix the Cannot pass GC Handle Accross Appdomains problem,

I see weird problems appearing with Team foundation server, have been looking at the posts on the internet, seems like there is no clear cut solution to any of them,

Nalina

Tuesday, January 02, 2007 6:17 PM by Nalina

# re: Stuff in the pipe for Team Foundation Server

Hi! Bharry

Is this Service pack out for installation,

Does it fix the Cannot pass GC Handle Accross Appdomains problem,

I see weird problems appearing with Team foundation server, have been looking at the posts on the internet, seems like there is no clear cut solution to any of them,

Nalina

nalina.vemparala@computershare.com.au

Tuesday, January 02, 2007 6:18 PM by Nalina

# re: Stuff in the pipe for Team Foundation Server

Yes, the TFS SP1 fixes the problem with passing GC handles across app domains.  What kind of wierd problems are you seeing?

Brian

Tuesday, January 02, 2007 7:27 PM by bharry

# re: Stuff in the pipe for Team Foundation Server

I can't seem (via Google) to find anywhere a lucid list of enhancements that SP1 introduces. I found a huge list of bugs, but I'm curious to get an overview of what NEW functionality I might expect. We installed it last night, and I don't know what's new. There are so many things on my wish list I'm particularly interested in Work Item tracking and enhancements there.

Of course the short answer may be that there are none. Just bug fixes. But I must ask! Admittedly there's sometimes a fine line (the lack of a work item search tool is to my mind a glaring bug for example!).

Wednesday, May 09, 2007 10:30 PM by Bernd Wechner

# re: Stuff in the pipe for Team Foundation Server

There weren't that many new features in SP1.  For TFS, this blog post lists them all:

http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry/archive/2006/10/03/Promised-SP1-docs.aspx

Brian

Thursday, May 10, 2007 6:44 AM by bharry

# [Update] TFS SP1 et MSSCCI

Une nouvelle version du plugin MSSCCI permettant d'accéder au Source Control et aux Work Items depuis

Saturday, September 20, 2008 11:31 AM by Arnaud CLERET

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