Dave's Team System Blog : Team System

Notion Tools for Team System

dscruggs — Thu, 07 May 2009 16:05:32 GMT

The guys over at Notion Solutions released a set of tools that add some convenience to some typical Team System tasks. I've worked with the tools, an they're pretty easy to configure. I was talking with Chris Menegay , and he said that they just had common...(read more)

Team Foundation Build Recipes Site

dscruggs — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:51:52 GMT

Grant Holliday was an MVP, but now he supports internal VSTS/TFS operations here at Microsoft. He’s got a great blog over at Grant Holliday's blog . Before he came to Microsoft, he maintained a Team Foundation Build Recipes site. He turned it over...(read more)

When your web test recorder doesn’t show up

dscruggs — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:41:00 GMT

I typically run a 64-bit OS, so I occasionally see an issue with the Web Test Recorder explorer bar. For example, the Web Test Recorder explorer bar wasn’t coming up during a test. When I added the explorer bar manually, it wasn’t capturing...(read more)

Atlanta Code Camp—March 14th

dscruggs — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:30:29 GMT

Steve Andrews and I both have sessions about VSTS in the upcoming Atlanta Code Camp . Registration is already open. We’ve got a lot of speakers on LINQ, Azure, OSLO, Ruby, Search, Silverlight, and more sessions . I’m going to talk about...(read more)

Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1, and Some of the Effects

dscruggs — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 00:03:31 GMT

Some of you might have seen an error like Could not load type 'Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Client.WorkItemTypeDeniedOrNotExistException' from assembly 'Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Client, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a'...(read more)

New Case Studies

dscruggs — Mon, 07 May 2007 18:25:24 GMT

KBC Bank is a Belgian-based bank with eleven million customers, and have developers and project managers located on different continents. They increased developer and manager productivity, improved software quality, and shortened project cycles by using...(read more)

Shadow folders in TFS

dscruggs — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 21:29:00 GMT

After I've told everyone that it can't be done in Team System, Buck Hodges posts how to emulate that behavior: http://blogs.msdn.com/buckh/archive/2006/03/02/shadow-folders.aspx ....(read more)

Sync points in Team System Load Tests

dscruggs — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 21:25:00 GMT

Sync points are something you can use to drive heavy load on a system. In some other tools, they're called "Rendezvous points". For example, you could have every user adding items to shopping carts at their own pace, then synchronizing so that they all...(read more)

New Team System Roadmap posted

dscruggs — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 17:36:00 GMT

The first posting of the roadmap is available here . You can see the update on Brian Harry's blog here: http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry/archive/2007/04/05/update-on-team-foundation-server-roadmap.aspx . There are some good aspects being added to the roadmap,...(read more)

More places to look for Team System Information

dscruggs — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 20:21:00 GMT

I just finished the OnRamp240 event in Charlotte yesterday, and there were a couple of items that they wanted me to post. So, here goes: http://www.codeplex.com/BranchingGuidance Project structure, branching, and promotion guidance from some Microsoft...(read more)

Two bits: 1) How to test web services using Team System and 2) help debugging an install

dscruggs — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 17:48:00 GMT

Cory Foy put up a pretty good tutorial for Autogenerating Tests for Web Services using Visual Studio . It's worth checking out. Ed Hintz put out instructions for TFS Client Tracing , in case you need to record what is being transmitted between Visual...(read more)

An answer for those of you who wanted Browser-based access to TFS

dscruggs — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 21:22:00 GMT

For those of you who have wanted browser-based access to Team System, Microsoft announced the acquisition of DevBiz today: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2007/mar07/03-26VisualStudio.mspx . Some of the good news is that we’re making the client...(read more)

Vista Refresh for Visual Studio Service Pack 1 available

dscruggs — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 22:59:00 GMT

You can get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=90E2942D-3AD1-4873-A2EE-4ACC0AACE5B6&displaylang=en . If you have the beta of this refresh, you'll want to uninstall beta before installing the full refresh--see the Instructions...(read more)

So what is a check-in policy?

dscruggs — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 21:23:52 GMT

If you're reading this blog, you're probably familiar with Team System check-in policies; we have three out-of-the-box—code analysis, testing policy, and associated work items. You can apply one or more—or none for that matter. If your pending checkin...(read more)

Hi, and some quick start information

dscruggs — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 16:52:00 GMT

Who am I?

I'm Dave Scruggs, and people who meet me through Microsoft know me as a Developer Technical Specialist (or "Dev-TS"). That means I help people understand what Team System is, what it's supposed to do for them, how it fits into the way they work, and why they would want to use it.

Fortunately, Microsoft and partners have created a massive amount of content on these subjects. However, even with good search engines and guides, people still have the a lot of the same questions: how do I get a copy, how do I roll out Team System, and how do I learn more about it?

With that in mind, here are a few places to get started:

Getting a evaluation copy of VSTS or TFS

Here are links that provide evaluation copies-use them to get a time-limited, but fully functional, version of Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite and Team Foundation Server.

Download 180-day Trial
Download Team Foundation Server Trial
Other Evaluation Options
Order a trial via mail (select Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite Win32 English 180 Day DVD Trial): https://www.tryvs2005.com/profile.aspx.

Getting ready for VSTS and TFS

Read the planning guide to determine how you'd like to roll out TFS: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms400691.aspx (main guide) and http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/teamsystem/team/quickstarts/tfs_plan/default.aspx (brief).
Installation guides and instructions: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=E54BF6FF-026B-43A4-ADE4-A690388F310E&displaylang=en (main reference), with more options here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/teamsystem/team/quickstarts/install/default.aspx.
Administration guide: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=52459.

Before a deployment-even before choosing hardware--I'd start by reading the planning guide, then by reading the installation guide. Sizing information and deployment principles are contained in both guides.

Learning about VSTS and TFS

If there are people who need to learn about VSTS, there are some good sites:

The "Expand" website: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/teamsystem/expand/
Buck Hodge's Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/buckh/.
Brian Harry's Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry/.
Visual Studio Team System User Education Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/vstsue/
Team System Educational Videos (Walkthroughs): http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms181244.aspx
Try Team System in a hosted/virtual environment: http://msdn.microsoft.com/virtuallabs/teamsystem/default.aspx.
MSDN VSTS Portal: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/teamsystem/.
The VSTSRocks website: http://www.VSTSRocks.com/Tutorials