Ed Hintz (MSFT) : Team Foundation Server

Pre-release of TFS to TFS Migration Tool Available on CodePlex!

edhintz — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 17:50:21 GMT

Back in June we released the TFS Migration and Synchronization Toolkit - a toolkit that helps migrate data between 3rd party version control and bug tracking systems and TFS. Turns out that folks also want to migrate data between two TFS servers too, so work was begun on writing a TFS to TFS migration tool based on the toolkit. A pre-release of this TFS to TFS Migration Tool is now available on CodePlex! This tool enables migration of work items and version control items with history between TFS servers. To learn more about the tool, you can visit the TFS to TFS Migration Tool page on CodePlex.

The purpose of this pre-release is for testing and stabilizing of the tool before officially releasing the tool. We are hoping to get the kinks worked while in pre-release, so please keep in mind that while we've done a good amount of testing and a few successful customer migrations, there are many scenarios that we haven't run across yet.

For feedback or support with the tool, please send mail to TfsToTfs@microsoft.com

How To Get TFS Power Tool Check-in Policies for VS2005 to Work with VS2008 (Orcas)

edhintz — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 22:54:02 GMT

The current TFS Power Tools support TFC/VS 2005 only. However, there are beta customers of VS2008 (aka Orcas) who want to use the check-in policies from the TFS Power Tools.

With a few manual steps (below) you can get the TFS Power Tool Check-in policies to work with VS2008 and observe how .Net binding redirects work as a bonus. I've only done some basic ad-hoc testing with this approach, so standard disclaimers apply. This is provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confer no rights. No need to consult a physician first, but please back up where stated to back up.

Place Check-in Policy Assemblies

If your client machine has TFS 2005 installed, you can install the Power Tool setup as normal (if you have not already). If your machine only has TFC/VS2008, then you will need to find a machine that has VS 2005 installed, install the Power Tools, then copy the following binaries

Microsoft.TeamFoundation.PowerTools.CheckinPolicies.ChangesetComments.dll

Microsoft.TeamFoundation.PowerTools.CheckinPolicies.CustomPathPolicy.dll

Microsoft.TeamFoundation.PowerTools.CheckinPolicies.ForbiddenPatternsPolicy.dll

Microsoft.TeamFoundation.PowerTools.CheckinPolicies.WorkItemQueryPolicy.dll

For the rest of the steps, we'll use the same default location where the Power Tools install as the location for these check-in policies, namely,

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2005 Power Tools\Check-in Policy Pack

Modify Registry so VS2008 (Orcas) Can Find The Policies

Edit the text below and put it in a .reg file. Be sure to replace the path to your installed path if is is not the same as shown below.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\TeamFoundation\SourceControl\Checkin Policies]
"Microsoft.TeamFoundation.PowerTools.CheckinPolicies.WorkItemQueryPolicy"="C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2005 Power Tools\\Check-in Policy Pack\\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.PowerTools.CheckinPolicies.WorkItemQueryPolicy.dll"
"Microsoft.TeamFoundation.PowerTools.CheckinPolicies.ChangesetComments"="C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2005 Power Tools\\Check-in Policy Pack\\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.PowerTools.CheckinPolicies.ChangesetComments.dll"
"Microsoft.TeamFoundation.PowerTools.CheckinPolicies.CustomPathPolicy"="C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2005 Power Tools\\Check-in Policy Pack\\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.PowerTools.CheckinPolicies.CustomPathPolicy.dll"
"Microsoft.TeamFoundation.PowerTools.CheckinPolicies.ForbiddenPatternsPolicy"="C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2005 Power Tools\\Check-in Policy Pack\\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.PowerTools.CheckinPolicies.ForbiddenPatternsPolicy.dll"

Set Binding Redirects in DevEnv.Exe.Config

Since the TFS Power Tool Check-in policy assemblies reference the 8.0 assemblies, we need to configure devenv.exe to use the 9.0 assemblies whenever the 8.0 assemblies are referenced. Here is how you do that.

1. Close all instances of devenv.exe

2. Find where VS2008 (Orcas) devenv.exe is installed. Typically

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE

3. Backup the existing devenv.exe.config file

4. Edit devenv.exe.config by adding the following in the <runtime><assemblyBinding> section:

5. Save devenv.exe.config

Restart Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas)

Restart Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas) and the Power Tool check-in policies will be available.

Check-in Policy Compatibility between TFC 2005 and 2008

edhintz — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:28:00 GMT

A frequent question among TFC 2008 beta customers is about check-in policy compatability. Will check-in policies work across TFC 2005 and 2008?

The answer is that evaluation works across versions in both directions, but editing the policy definition only works in one direction (TFC 2008 can edit a TFC 2005 policy but TFC 2005 cannot edit a 2008 policy).

Policy Version Added	Evaluate Policy		Edit Policy
	2005	2008	2005	2008
2005	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
2008	Yes	Yes	No	Yes

Policies are enforced on the client and require the proper assemblies to be installed on the client. If you have a custom or 3rd party check-in policy that works with TFC 2005, you will need a TFC 2008 version of the policy installed on TFC 2008 machines.

What about the popular Power Tool Check-in Policies?

Currently, the Power Tools target TFC 2005 only. The next Power Tool release will support TFC 2008.

TFS Migration and Synchronization Toolkit Prerelease Available On Codeplex

edhintz — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 06:52:10 GMT

Just released (or should I say, prereleased) tonight on Codeplex, the TFS Migration and Synchronization Toolkit (the toolkit) Prerelease. See here. We've be working on hard on this toolkit to make availalbe the best practices we have learned from migrating and synchronizing millions of files and work items internally and for customers. If you are thinking of migrating from an existing version control or work item tracking system to TFS, you'll definitely want to check this out. Let us know what you think.

Review the Team Foundation System Migration Toolkit Spec

edhintz — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 00:08:40 GMT

The Team Foundation Migration Toolkit specification is available for review here (there are links to leave feedback in the doc). The purpose of this toolkit is to help developers write converters from other version control and work item tracking systems to TFS. The toolkit will also helps if you need to mirror or keep the two systems in sync. Many customers gradually move to TFS, so they need to keep changes synchronized between TFS and their existing systems.

We want to remove all adoption barriers. Often the biggest adoption barrier is transitioning from the existing system to TFS. The toolkit is based on our years of experience migrating and mirroring our internal systems as well as the SourceSafe converter.

Visual Studio Team System Chat - this Wednesday Feb 7th

edhintz — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 16:59:50 GMT

Join members of the Visual Studio Team System product group to discuss features available in Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, Team Editions for Architects, Developers, Database Pros, and Testers. In addition, discuss what's new in the latest Community Technology Preview (CTP).

Join the chat on Wednesday, February 7th, 2007 from 10:00am - 11:00am Pacific Time.

Add to Calendar

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Team Foundation Server Channel 9 Series Begins

edhintz — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 15:36:55 GMT

The first in a series of Channel 9 videos covering various topics of Team Foundation Server is available here. In this first video, Doug Neumann whiteboards branching and merging strategies.

New Release of Team Foundation Server MSSCCI Provider

edhintz — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 18:17:20 GMT

You can get it here.

Overview

The Visual Studio Team Foundation Server MSSCCI Provider enables integrated use of Team Foundation Version Control with products that do not support Team Explorer integration.
This version (1.2) includes:

Enable handling branched solutions in Visual Studio 2003.
Fixed issues to enable provider to support Toad for SQL Server 2.0.
Enhanced the "Choose Folder in Team Foundation Server" dialog.
Fixed bug which prevented Properties Dialog from displaying local path.
Work Items Query list in the Checkin Dialog is loaded and saved on the disk.
"Get" operation performance improvements.
Defect fixes

This is our third release this year of the TFS MSSCCI provider. Keep the feedback coming via the forum or by e-mail.

Channel 9 Interviewing Team Foundation Server Team

edhintz — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 19:54:03 GMT

Brian Keller will be interviewing members of the Team Foundation Server Team on December 14th and 15th (Wednesday and Thursday this week) for Channel 9. Submit questions for the interview here before December 13th. This is your chance to find out something about Team Foundation Server, but were afraid to ask (you can have Brian ask for you ;-).

Brian Keller will be interviewing me about Team Foundation Powertools, Brian Harry about the Team Foundation Server road map, and several more great topics that you can see here. You can watch the existing Visual Studio Team System channel 9 videos here.

You have the power - New Team Foundation Powertoys Released

edhintz — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 00:15:00 GMT

Last week I wrote about the value of out of band development and an upcoming release of powertoys for Team Foundation Server. Late Thursday night the Team Foundation Powertoys were released. You can get them here. There is a new forum dedicated to the Powertoys available here.

I am a little late blogging about this release because I was OOF (Microsoft acronym for out of office). Several folks have blogged about this release already including Somasegar (our VP), Brian Harry and Buck Hodges. I will not repeat information they have already provided, however, I do want to cover how these powertoys came about and how you can contribute to future out of band efforts.

First, I want to recognize the efforts folks put into this release. Chad Boles and Brian Harry worked on Annotate, Taylor Lafrinere (a college intern from U. of Michigan) was on Tree Diff with Tan Phan putting in the finishing touches. Tony Edwards, Mike Kok, and John Morris were on setup. Adam Barr and Ted Chambers helped test. Kevin Kelly was the director guiding us through the extensive release checklist. My role was like the stage manager - making sure everything was in the right place, passed various quality gates, reviewed and working for the band.

What Makes a Good Powertoy

As I mentioned in my post on out of band development, there are hundreds of missing features in the first release of a product into a mature market space. How did we choose what missing features would become powertoys?

Listening to customers - One of the criteria for a powertoy is that there has to be customer demand for it. It must solve a customer pain point. We get this feedback at conferences, on the forums, blogs, and every customer engagement. For example, we heard many customers request Tree Diff.

Listening to Dogfood users - We use Team Foundation Server for our version control, but tracking, and reporting. This is called dogfooding the product. We eat our own dogfood. Therefore, developers, testers, and program managers within Microsoft are customers too. Trust me, we hear their feedback :-). At Microsoft, we use the version control shelving feature alot. The ability to merge on unshelve was one of the first powertoys based on internal feedback. One developer went as far as making the request his background e-mail image (must do merge on unshelve).

Opportunistic - We also evaluate the amount of work required and future release needs when deciding on a powertoy. Everything else being equal, a powertoy that requires less work is going to be done first. We also want to use powertoys as a means of getting early feedback for features we are considering for the "in band" product release.

Contributing to Future Out of Band Efforts

You can contribute to future out of band efforts in several ways:

Provide Feedback on what you'd like to see via the forums, blogs, talking to the folks at conferences. To quote Frazier, "We're Listening". Some key forums include the Team Foundation Powertoy forum, Team Foundation Server forum, Version Control forum, and Work Item Tracking forum. Although there no reporting or team build power toys now, you can give suggestions on the Reporting, and Team Build forums.

Contribute to development efforts on CodePlex. Here you can join like minded and highly motivated developers to build cool products.

Write and release your own products. There is a healthy ecosystem around Team System for folks that can recognize the right opportunities. See my Friday August 25th post for an example of two companies that are doing just that.

Visual Studio Team System Public MSDN Chat

edhintz — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 03:40:00 GMT

Come and join members from the Visual Studio Team System product group to discuss features available in Visual Studio Architect, Developer and Tester editions and Team Foundation Server. There will be experts on hand to answer your questions. I hope to see you there!

Join the chat on Wednesday September 6th, 2006 10:00am - 11:00am Pacific time.

To add this to your calendar, click here.

To see your local time of when this chat is, click here.

Team Foundation Server MSSCCI Provider Released!

edhintz — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 23:35:00 GMT

The Team Foundation Server MSSCCI Provider (TFS MSSCCI) available now!. You can download it here (If you tried to get this on 4/7/2006 and it errored out, please try again). TFS MSSCCI allows applications and development environments that serve as MSSCCI hosts to access Team Foundation Server Source Control.

Supported environments:

Visual Studio .NET 2003
Visual C++ 6 SP6
Visual Visual Basic 6 SP6
Visual FoxPro 9 SP1
Microsoft Access 2003 SP2
SQL Server Management Studio 2005

Other environments that support MSSCCI should work as well, but were not tested.

The TFS MSSCCI provider is unsupported and provided "as is". However, you can ask questions on our forum or by mail and we will do our best to help. We welcome and look forward to your feedback.

Special thanks to Ben Ryan, Michal Malecki, Pei Gu, Ted Chambers and Mario Rodriguez for making this release possible.

A Brief SourceSafe User's Guide to Team Foundation Version Control

edhintz — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 17:35:00 GMT

Moving from one software application to another often results in various "surprises" where the new application does not behave the same way as the previous one. Over the course of the Team Foundation beta program I have observed a number of these "surprises" that beta customers experienced who were SourceSafe users trying out Team Foundation source code control. I have noted these changes in behavior below as a brief SourceSafe User's guide to Team Foundation Version Control. I will blog more on this topic as new scenarios arise.

Checkout does not download the latest file - for a good reason

Checking out a file in TF does not download the latest file like the default SourceSafe behavior. The reason TF does not download the latest file is that this could break your build on your local machine because the set of files you have on your machine are not from the same point in time (from the server's perspective). As a developer, this is the preferred behavior because there is often a domino effect where getting the latest of one file requires getting other files that have dependent changes. For example, suppose you check out 2 files to fix a bug only to find out half a day later that you need to modify a third file to fix the bug. Since the time you checked out your first two files, someone else has checked in a change to the 3rd file that requires you to get 5 more files. If checkout gets the latest files, you will also need to get the 5 additional files plus whatever new dependencies that have been added to those files. I've seen SourceSafe user (I've done it myself) check out the entire project on purpose to avoid this scenario.

If you really want to get the latest of a file before doing a checkout in one step, you can use the following macro:

    Sub CheckoutLatest()
        DTE.ExecuteCommand("File.TfsGetLatestVersion")
        DTE.ExecuteCommand("File.TfsCheckOut")
    End Sub

Get did not get it....literally

I've seen a number of SourceSafe users try the following:

1. They made changes to files under a folder CompanyApp
2. They want to rebuild with a version of one or more files before they made their change so they do the following:
a. Rename their local CompanyApp folder to MyCompanyApp
b. They do a get from source control which in effects gives them the files as they were before making their changes in source control

SourceSafe in this case would make a CompanyApp folder and place the latest files in this folder.

TF does not get anything. Why? Because the server knows you already have that version locally. For performance reasons, TF does not check the local files on disk when performing a get operation, it checks the version that you got last locally with what is in the server and decides if the file will be downloaded.

So, how do you accomplish the same goal in the scenario above? You can do this in one of two ways.

Shelveset

Shelve your current changes and uncheck the "Preserve pending changes locally" (File, Source control, Shelve Pending Changes...). This will save your pending changes on the server, but will undo these changes locally. You can then build and use the files as they were before your changes. When you want to go back to your previous changes, unshelve your previous shelveset (File, Source Control, Unshelve Pending Changes...)

Use a different workspace

Perform the get in a different workspace (which will be mapped to a different local directory).

If you deleted files locally by mistake and you want the Get operation to download the files, perform a force get by doing the following:

Choose the File, Source Control, Get Specific Version... menu
Check the "Force get of file version already in workspace" checkbox

Get of deleted files/directories will delete them locally

If a file or folder is deleted in the TF server, the next time you do a get of that file/folder your local file or folder will be deleted. In this scenario, SourceSafe leaves your local file/folder alone.

No sharing and pinning files/folders

Team Foundation Source Control does not support sharing and pinning. In Team Foundation you use branching and merging. This has already been blogged about on Buck Hodge's and Team Foundation blog. See the following:

Sharring and Pinning:

http://blogs.msdn.com/buckh/archive/2004/06/14/155403.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/buckh/archive/2004/06/10/152609.aspx

Branching and Merging:

http://blogs.msdn.com/buckh/archive/2004/06/14/155417.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/team_foundation/archive/2005/02/23/379179.aspx

Deletes do not happen immediately

When you delete a file from a solution controlled by SourceSafe, the default behavior is to delete the file on the server immediately. This can easily break a build if someone does a get from source control when this delete depends on another file that has not been checked in yet, say another file that still refers to the deleted file (e.g. a source file or make/project file).

With TF source control the delete is a pending change that is not reflected on the server until you do your next checkin with all associated dependencies.

The first time you delete a file with SourceSafe you are given the following options:

Delete both the local and source control store file
Delete the local file now, delete the source control store file on checkin (this is the way TF works)

You may have been presented with this dialog a long time ago and accepted the defaults and checked the "Do not show again" checkbox.

Adding a solution to Team Foundation Version Control is not done immediately

When you add a solution to source control using SourceSafe the files are uploaded to the server immediately. With TF, this is not the case. Instead a pending add is created and the files are not uploaded until you do a checkin.