Jason Prickett's Blog

We have a new plugin for IntelliJ IDEA

If you are using IntelliJ IDEA and you have git repositories in VSO or TFS, you need this plugin....

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 10/23/2015

A new mission - Java!

The course of this blog will be taking a new direction. I have moved from build automation to a...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 10/22/2015

Upgrading your build definitions from TFS2010 to TFS2012

There have been a lot of problems with compatibility of custom builds when upgrading from TFS2010 to...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 10/24/2012

TFS 2012 – Cleaning up Workflow XAML files (AKA removing versioned namespaces)

If you haven’t run into this problem in TFS Build 2012 yet, you probably will… Problem:...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 07/17/2012

TFS 2012 – IBuildDetail.RequestedFor is not what it used to be!

If you have custom build tasks or activities that rely on “build.RequestedFor” (or...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 07/05/2012

TFS11 RC – Simple Build Summary Customization

So, I did a few posts when TFS 2010 released on how developers could customize the Visual Studio...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 06/07/2012

TFS11 Beta – Batching Gated Builds

In TFS 2010, we added Gated builds. A gated build is like a pessimistic continuous integration (CI)....

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 06/05/2012

Using NuGet with TFS Build Automation

In case you aren’t familiar with NuGet, check out this link: https://www.nuget.org How does NuGet...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 05/10/2012

TFS11 Beta - TfsBuildServiceHost.2012 service stopping unexpectedly

We noticed several early adopters running into an issue with the build service in TFS11 Beta...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 05/08/2012

TFS11 Beta - The Builds Page

A picture is worth a thousand words… We will skip talking about the toolbar and the page title area,...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 03/12/2012

TFS11 Beta – Team Explorer (a new way to get things done)

When you connect to TFS from a Dev11 client, you will see a whole new Team Explorer. Here’s what...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 03/12/2012

TFS11 Beta – RELEASED!

Well, we finally got TFS11 to the point that we want everyone to see it! And just to encourage...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 03/12/2012

TFS 2010 - Using a TypeConverter to display your custom Process Parameter list type

I just helped someone today with this common problem... "How do I get my custom list process...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 01/12/2012

Inline Tasks for MSBuild that work with TFS

Someone asked a question about how to do something in MSBuild the other day. They were using the...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 08/23/2011

TFS 2010 - Overriding build settings

This post is for those that are pretty familiar with the TFS Build features in Visual Studio. If you...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 08/15/2011

TFS 2010 - Managing the hidden Build Service Host objects

If you use the TFS Build Automation Object Model, then you may have noticed that we have objects...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 04/25/2011

TFS 2010 - Build menu ids and guids

Okay, so I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago and exposed two of the menu guids for Build. Since...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 04/21/2011

TFS 2010 - Bulk Updating Build Definitions (Retention Policies)

In this post, I just want to help those of you out there that have upgraded from 2008 and need to...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 04/14/2011

TFS 2010 - Adding a menu item to the Completed Builds context menu in the Build Explorer

So, I have gotten this question a couple of times... "How can I add my own custom menu item to a TFS...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 04/08/2011

TFS 2010 - Viewing the Build Details Log View in Visual Studio is very slow

So, there are several things I want to talk about, but they all boil down to the perf of the Log...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 02/08/2011

TFS2010 – Where is $(BuildNumber)?

So, I have been asked this very question a couple of times now which means it should be searchable...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 01/26/2011

TFS 2010 – Making Your Build Log Less Noisy

So, I have been asked this question a couple of times now and so I decided to put it out there for...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 12/09/2010

TFS 2010 – Ordering the Build Process Parameters On The Definition

So, I had someone ask this question about the process parameters on the Process tab of the Build...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 11/30/2010

TFS2010 – Customizing the Build Details View – Summary View

In some previous posts (here and here), I talked about ways to change the log view part of the build...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 08/09/2010

TFS 2010 - Build Security API

I had a request recently on how to “Secure” a build from code. While I am still not sure...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 07/19/2010

TFS 2010 – Managing Build Process Templates (what are those?)

If you haven’t noticed already in 2010. New build definitions no longer use the tfsBuild.proj file...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 04/08/2010

TFS2010 - Queuing a Build (from code) With Custom Process Parameter Values

I got a question today on how to access the process parameters of a build definition in 2010. If you...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 03/25/2010

Using The Custom Assembly Path to Deploy Custom TFS Checkin Policies

First, what is the Custom Assembly Path? In TFS 2010, we added a feature to the Build infrastructure...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 03/11/2010

Creating Fake builds in TFS Build 2010

It was brought to my attention that the code I posted here no longer works in TFS Build 2010. So, I...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 02/23/2010

TFS 2010 – The New Build Definition Window

The build definition dialog is now a window! Why is that so exciting? Well, let me tell you… Now you...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 01/19/2010

TFS 2010 – Custom Process Parameters Part 4 – Custom Types

In my previous posts, we discussed… Custom Process Parameters Process Parameter Metadata Custom...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 01/18/2010

TFS 2010 – Custom Process Parameters Part 3 – Custom Editors

In the last post of this series, we added metadata to our custom process parameter and I described...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 01/18/2010

TFS 2010 – Custom Process Parameters Part 2 - MetaData

This is a continuation of the Part 1 post. In the last post, we created a Hello World process...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 12/23/2009

TFS 2010 – Custom Process Parameters Part 1

What are process parameters? These are the objects that we pass into the build process that...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 12/23/2009

TFS 2010 – Displaying Custom Build Information in Visual Studio

In TFS 2008, we had a lot of requests to make the Build Details View customizable. In 2010, we have...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 12/21/2009

TFS 2010 - How about those Build delete options

When you delete a build in Visual Studio 2010, you don’t just get a message box that says “Are you...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 12/09/2009

TFS 2010 – What’s New On The Build Explorer?

The Queued Tab: So, as you can see not much has changed on the Queued tab of the build explorer...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 06/15/2009

TFS 2010 Beta1 – Build DEtails View Log View section

The picture above is of the Log View of the new Build Details View in Visual Studio Team System...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 05/18/2009

tFS 2010 Beta1 – Build Details View Summary section

The picture above is of the new “Build Report” in TFS 2010. I prefer the term Build Details View,...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 05/12/2009

CollapsibleSection - Hiding Paragraphs until the user wants to see them in a FlowDocument

As I mentioned back in January, I created a collapsible section for use in a flow document. In my...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 04/23/2009

WPF Documents - Indenting Paragraphs

As I promised, this is a post about what I learned while creating a flow document that had indented...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 01/07/2009

WPF FlowDocuments - What, When, Why, How?

As I learn more and more about WPF, I am continually amazed at how much I don't know. I recently...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 01/07/2009

Keeping Version Control Labels When Team Builds Are Deleted in TFS 2008 SP1

We have had quite a few complaints about the fact that we delete the labels created during a build...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 09/30/2008

WPF - A Stretching TreeView

What is a stretching treeView? Recently, I found the need to have a TreeView in my WPF application...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 08/05/2008

Filtering the Build Status Change Event (BuildStatusChangeEvent)

In an previous post (long long ago), I described some scenarios around why you would want to...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 05/13/2008

Where's the TfsBuild.proj file for this Definition?

In Team Build 2005, the "definition" of the build was the same as the TfsBuild.proj file....

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 05/05/2008

WF - Creating an Activity Base Class

(or Designing Your Workflow Activity Class Hierarchy) One of the questions that we've had to...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 04/23/2008

WF - The Asynchronous Activity/Service Pattern

In my previous blog post (Creating an Asynchronous Workflow Activity), I explained why your custom...

Author: Jason Prickett - MSFT Date: 01/25/2008

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