Buck Hodges

TFS 2010 Beta 1: Don’t run initial configuration from the administration console (MMC)

Beta 1 for TFS 2010, along with VS and VSTS, is now available to MSDN subscribers and will be available for broad download shortly.  Be sure to check out the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 First Look site to see what’s in this release, as well as the documentation on MSDN.  Brian has written posts on TFS 2010 features in administration and operations and work item tracking so far.

There’s a bug you’ll want to avoid in setting up and initially configuring beta 1.  If you choose not to continue on through configuration at the end of the MSI setup phase (in other words, you uncheck the box to launch the configuration tool), you must finish configuration by running tfsmgmt.exe configure to avoid causing problems with SharePoint.  After you have initially configured the server, you can and should use the Team Foundation Administration Console to make changes to your server.  We believe it's a great feature, and we want your feedback on it.  It's just the initial configuration of the server where we have this issue.

Here's a screenshot with the checkbox I'm talking about.  You'll want to leave it checked and continue through the configuration wizard.

If you choose to uncheck the box and then run the Team Foundation Administration Console (Start –> All Programs –> Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta 1 –> Team Foundation Administration Console), here is what you will see.  Do not click the link to run the wizard.  Instead, run the server configuration wizard from the command line via tfsmgmt configure instead.

If you go to the Team Foundation Build node in the admin console, you will see a similar link for configuring build.  There are no issues with configuring build from the admin console, so that one is not a problem.

Here is the content from the Beta 1 Readme about this issue, including the full path to the command line tool.

1.3.4   Initial Configuration of Team Foundation Server Should be Run From MSI Program or by Command Line

Initial Team Foundation Server configuration fails on Windows SharePoint configuration if you access the Team Foundation Configuration Tool by clicking the link in the Team Foundation Administration Console instead of by launching Team Foundation Configuration Tool at the end of the installation phase.

To avoid this issue:

If you want to setup Windows SharePoint Server during Team Foundation Server configuration, you must launch the Team Foundation Server Configuration Tool by using one of the two following methods:

·         Launch the Team Foundation Configuration Tool by selecting the check box at the end of the Team Foundation Server installation

·         If you exited Team Foundation Server MSI program (setup.exe) without launching Team Foundation Configuration Tool, do not start the Administration Console from the Start menu item shortcut. Instead use following command line:

"%programfiles%\Microsoft team foundation server 10.0\tools\tfsmgmt.exe" configure

After Team Foundation Server has installed and configured Windows SharePoint, you can configure Team Foundation Server by using the Start menu to launch Team Foundation Server Administration Console.

If you end up in a situation where you have installed beta 1 by launching the configuration wizard from the admin console and ended up with a corrupt SharePoint installation, the easiest way to get out of the situation right now is to uninstall both SharePoint and TFS 2010 and then re-install TFS 2010 Beta 1 and let it install and configure SharePoint.  I'll update this post if we have a set of steps that is less drastic than this.

This was a problem we discovered at the last moment.  It is due to the fact that we force the Microsoft Management Console (MMC), which hosts our Team Foundation Server Administration Console GUI, to run our MMC plugin under CLR 4.0.  The reason we had to do that is because MMC uses an older COM API to host the CLR, which is now capped at CLR 2.0 due to changes made in CLR 4.0.  The side effect of that hack is that it causes child processes that are executed to also run under 4.0.  One of the processes that we run as part of configuration is stsadm.exe.  Running stsadm under 4.0 causes it to serialize some 4.0 objects in the SharePoint database, at which point SharePoint is broken.

If you go straight through the setup and into configuration, thus following the default path, everything will work.  If you choose not to continue with configuration after the MSI portion of setup has completed, you need to run tfsmgmt.exe configure to complete the configuration (running it separately like that avoids the problem with the MMC environment).

Once you’ve gone through the initial installation and configuration of SharePoint, you can use the new Team Foundation Server Administration Console with no restrictions.

For beta 2 and beyond, we have made changes (yes, past tense…we’ve been working hard on beta 2) that avoid this issue entirely.

Be sure to provide us feedback and let us know what issues you find in beta 1 by entering them into Connect.

[Update 5/19/2008]  I've added a couple of screenshots to make it more clear, and I've also added clarification that it's the initial configuration of the server where you need to be aware of this issue.

TFS 2008 supports SQL 2008 SP1

SQL 2008 SP1 has just been released, and we've gotten a couple of questions about whether it is supported with with Team Foundation Server 2008.  We tested SQL 2008 SP1 with both the original release of TFS 2008 and TFS 2008 SP1, and we do fully support using it with either release of TFS 2008.

[UPDATE 4/14/2009]  If you are installing TFS 2008 and using an instance of SQL that already has SQL 2008 SP1 applied, you will need to follow the steps in the following KB article: How to install Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server on a computer that has SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 installed.  This is required due to the version number for SQL 2008 SP1 being different than what the TFS 2008 SP1 setup logic expects.

Debug your build with MSBuild Sidekick v2.3

The folks at Attrice have released a new version of their MSBuild Sidekick, and it now includes a visual debugger for msbuild.  If you've ever tried to debug a build process, you know how tedious it can be and will want to check this out.

MSBuild Sidekick v 2.3 is released

We are happy to announce the release of version 2.3 of MSBuild Sidekick!

Many of you would remember “How would you spend $100 on MSBuild?” poll published on MSBuild Team Blog. MSBuild users were asked to vote on most valuable future features in MSBuild; and while we could not improve MSBuild engine performance or add inline tasks support we did implement visual debugger for MSBuild! MSBuild Sidekick v2.3 is now the one-stop solution for all your debugging needs such as stepping through the build, inspecting locals and setting breakpoints.

The new features in MSBuild Sidekick v2.3 are:

• Visual debugger (you can analyze build sequence using diagram) with breakpoints support and integrated Globals/Autos windows for viewing properties/items values during debugging

• Customized editors and integrated online help for MSBuild Extension Pack tasks
• Ability to cancel a running build
• Ability to edit Project element raw XML
• Auto-detection of latest .NET Framework on tool installation

Sorting by multiple columns in work item tracking

Recently I was showing someone the results of a bug query and sorting by more than one column in work item tracking in Team Explorer.  When the person said he didn't realize that feature existed, I decided it would be worth posting.  This also works in Team System Web Access.

To sort by more the one column, simply hold the Shift key when clicking the column header of the column you would like to sort next.  If you want to sort descending instead of ascending, continue to hold the Shift key and click the header again to flip the sort ordering.

In the screen shot below, I'm sorting first by Priority and then by Area Level 4.  You cannot tell from looking at the column headers which column gets sorted first.

This works in the 2008 version and newer of Team Explorer and Team System Web Access.  I was using Team Explorer 2008 SP1 in the screenshot above.

Since I'm on the topic of subtle but useful features, there's a handy way to diff files in version control by holding the Shift key and double clicking on a pending change.

Finally, did you know that you can use the formatting toolbar in VS to insert rich text into your work items?  With TSWA it's more obvious because the formatting toolbar is shown just above the text box.  In TFS 2010, the work item editor in Team Explorer also shows the formatting toolbar with the text box.

[Update 3/23/09]  Sunder Raman, now program manager for the TFS Reporting feature area, reminded me of a couple of great posts he wrote a year ago.  Be sure to check these out for more useful work item tracking tips.

• Drag and drop attachments, columns
• Multi-column sort, saving attachments, sort/expand/collapse history

Why the CheckInEvent doesn't list all of the files in a changeset

I recently received a question from someone about the CheckInEvent.

We subscribe to the Notify event using the BisSubscribe tool. Basically we have many applications that share some projects, but as TFS has no mechanism for sharing we have written our own in house app.

We have hooked into Notify for the CheckInEvents and we check each file after checkin to see if it is one of our shared files. If it is then we bounce it around to various locations etc..

All has been working fine until recently we started getting problems on large check ins. After some investigation I have noticed that the string eventXml parameter does not contain all of the check in information. Bascially it seems to only hold a max of 25 checkins.

I wondered if you'd come across this problem, and if you had any advice??

What's happening here is that TFS limits the number of changes included in the XML for the event to prevent sending large (or even huge) amounts of data that may not be needed.  To get a list of all of the changes for a particular changeset, you must use the VersionControlServer.GetChangeset() method, specifying the changeset from the XML.

New book on MSBuild and Team Foundation Build

There is now a book dedicated to MSBuild and Team Foundation Build.  The book is written by Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi and William Bartholomew.  Sayed has written about MSBuild before, both in books and MSDN Magazine articles, and William is a Team System MVP with a lot of experience in customizing the build process in Team Foundation.

If you want to learn more about using build in Team System, you need to get a copy.

Inside the Microsoft® Build Engine: Using MSBuild and Team Foundation Build

Product Description
The build process when code gets assembled to see how and how well it works is a critical step in software development. Developers had few options for customizing the build process before Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008, but the Microsoft Build Engine (MSBuild) enables developers to customize each step during a build. MSBuild is extensible and uses an XML file to describe each step, allowing the build master or developer to easily change and augment how projects are built. This book offers hands-on guidance for customizing MSBuild, and provides a cookbook of examples on Web deployment, automated releases, and other essential topics. It also covers Visual Studio Team Foundation Build, the build engine in Visual Studio Team System.

Fix for TFS Build 2008 SP1 to speed up your builds

Quite a few folks have reported longer build times and noticed that the build details view has a lot more output in it, and as a result of the extra output being logged, the builds are slower.  Aaron has written a post about a hotfix to speed up your builds in the SP1 version of Team Build.  This hotfix, like many others for TFS, is available on the MSDN Code Gallery site.

KB958845: TFSBuild TargetsNotLogged property fails to cut down noisy builds

Team System site overhauled

Sharon Elkins has written a post about the newly-redesigned Team System web site.  She has some details on the transformation, but one thing that stands out is the page reduction.  It's got about 75% fewer pages, which means a bunch of old stuff is gone.

Check it out and give her your feedback!

How to determine the latest changeset in your workspace

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.

tf history . /r /noprompt /stopafter:1 /version:W

Here's what that command means.  The ". /r" part says to look at the current directory recursively, which is why you must run it from the root (top directory) of your workspace.  Here I've specified "/noprompt" so that I don't get dialog, but that's optional.  The "/stopafter:1" option tells tf to print only one changeset.

The version option is the part that tells the history command to consider history only up to what you have in your workspace.  The "W" means workspace, and without the workspace name and owner being specified it means the current workspace.  The version option could also be written as "/version:1~W" to explicitly state that you are interested in history only up to what is in your workspace.  The "1~" is implicit when it is not specified.  Changeset 1 is when the root of the repository ($/) was created.

Since the history command sorts the changesets from highest to lowest, the result is that the command displays the highest changeset version of all files currently in your workspace.

TFS Branching Guide 2.0 released

Bijan Javidi announced the release of TFS Branching Guide 2.0 on CodePlex.  Check it out and be sure to send them your feedback on it.  They are always looking for ways to enhance and make it even more useful.

TFS Branching Guide 2.0

Welcome to the Team Foundation Server Branching Guidance Community Site! The purpose of this project is to build some insightful and practical guidance around branching and merging with Team Foundation Server. It's a collaborative effort by VSTS Rangers in cooperation with VSTS MVPs, Microsoft Services, and VSTS Product Team.

Why the 2nd release?

Since the first release, we have received lots of feedback and change requests. Most feedback indicated a desire for a more practical approach to branching compared to the first release which is more theoretical. With that in mind, we decided to reduce the conceptual part and focus on branching practices with Team Foundation Server.
What is in the package?

• TFS Branching Guide - Main 2.0
  • This is the main article which briefly explains branching concepts and introduces 3 levels of the most common branching scenario
• TFS Branching Guide - Scenarios 2.0
  • A collection of less common branching scenarios
• TFS Branching Guide - Q&A 2.0
  • A set of most frequently asked questions with answers
• TFS Branching Guide - Drawings 2.0
  • A set of branching drawings in different formats including a large branching poster
• TFS Branching Guide - Labs 2.0
  • A couple of examples for hands on labs with step by step instruction for practicing the branching scenarios

The TFS Branching community

An important goal for this release is to go beyond just publishing this guide and create a living and ticking community. With your help and contribution, we would like to incrementally grow our libraries for scenarios, Q&As and labs. If for example, you are not able to find a suitable scenario for your branching needs, we encourage you to post a request for a new scenario. This will trigger a small process with a team which owns the development of the new scenario with your cooperation. Your name will then appear as the coauthor of that scenario.

Release 2.0 scenarios

The following scenarios are included in release 1:

• Single Team Branching Model
• Concurrent Hot Fix, Service Pack, and v.Next
• Branching by Version Scenario

Installing an evaluation copy of Windows Server 2008 and extending the evaluation period

More than a year ago, I posted a reference to Jeff Atwood's post on extending the evaluation period for Windows Vista.

KB article 948472 describes the process for Windows Server 2008 and includes instructions on installing an evaluation version of Windows Server 2008 from the standard media as well has how to set up a recurring task in Windows Task Scheduler to extend the evaluation period to 240 days.

How to extend the Windows Server 2008 evaluation period

SUMMARY

This article describes how to extend, or re-arm, the Windows Server 2008 evaluation period. The evaluation period is also known as the "activation grace" period. These instructions apply to any edition of Windows Server 2008. This includes evaluation copies.

INTRODUCTION

Evaluating Windows Server 2008 software does not require product activation. Any edition of Windows Server 2008 may be installed without activation, and it may be evaluated for 60 days. Additionally, the 60-day evaluation period may be reset (re-armed) three times. This action extends the original 60-day evaluation period by up to 180 days for a total possible evaluation time of 240 days.

more...

Using Team Foundation Build with BizTalk and SSIS projects

Unfortunately there are several types of projects that do not work natively with MSBuild.  Jim Lamb, program manager for Team Build, has put together a few posts with pointers on how to get these to work with Team Build.

• Project System Compatibility with Team Build
• SQL Server Integration Services and Team Build
• BizTalk Server and Team Build

Tools for TFS on CodePlex: TeamReview and Info Kiosk

In the past I've written posts on tools for TFS on CodePlex.  I'm happy to say that there are now too many to show in a post.  I'd encourage you to take a look using this query for TFS on CodePlex.

A couple of people have sent me email about new tools for TFS on CodePlex, and I thought I'd mention them. here.

TeamReview

The first one is TeamReview.  Here's part of the description from the main page.

Using Work Items to facilitate the code review process creates a completely in-IDE code review experience, the ability to project-manage the code review tasks, and the opportunity to get new value from the code review process through code review forensics.

There's also a nice set of screen shots that walk you through the use of the tool.  Here's one as a bit of a teaser.

InfoKiosk

The second one is a tool that uses Silverlight to display information on bugs and builds in full screen mode for a continuous slide show view.

New blog by the Team Foundation Server global support team

The fine folks that support our customers have started a new blog:  Developer Support Team Foundation Server.  With posts by Trevor Hancock, Jim Saunders, and others on topics ranging from issues with TFS to the BPA (Best Practices Analyzer), you'll want to subscribe to this blog.  They also plan to post monthly summaries of publicly released hotfixes (patches).

Here's a sample of some of their recent posts.

• Setting up Team Foundation Server 2008 for HTTPS / SSL
• Project Creation with Scrum Fails After TFS Upgrade (2005 -> 2008)
• Installing 64-bit WSS Extensions for TFS 2008 on MOSS 2007

Check it out!

Why is the TFS 2008 version control security dialog blank?

If you install Service Pack 1 for .NET 3.5 on the server (application tier) without also installing Service Pack 1 for TFS 2008, you will not be able to view permissions in version control.  None of your data has been lost.  What has happened is that the code in ASP.NET that serializes the permission data on the server does not work properly when .NET 3.5 SP1 is installed, resulting in empty lists being returned to the client.  TFS 2008 SP1 contains a change that makes it work.

Your choices are either to uninstall SP1 for .NET 3.5 or install SP1 for TFS 2008.