Richard Fennell

Why do all my TFS labels appear to be associated with the same changeset?

But it works on my PC! — Thu, 16 May 2013 07:41:34 GMT

If you look at the labels tab in the source control history in Visual Studio 2012 you could be confused by the changeset numbers. How can all the labels added by my different builds, done over many days, be associated with the same changeset? If you look...(read more)

A new arrival at Black Marble

But it works on my PC! — Tue, 14 May 2013 10:03:05 GMT

Look what the stork delivered!...(read more)

Interested in some tutor delivered training on TFS 2012 in the UK?

But it works on my PC! — Fri, 10 May 2013 08:23:52 GMT

Interested in some tutor delivered training on TFS 2012? Well Anthony Borton , the TFS trainer and ALM MVP, is over in the UK running his excellent set of the TFS/VS 2012 focused courses. TFS 2012 Configuration and Administration 10th – 12th June 2013...(read more)

How healthy is my TFS server?

But it works on my PC! — Wed, 08 May 2013 14:31:17 GMT

If you want to know the health of the TFS server there are a number of options from a full System Center MOM pack downwards. A good starting point are the performance reports and administrative report pack produced by Grant Holiday . Though the performance...(read more)

Workaround for TF900546: An unexpected error occurred while running the RunTests activity

But it works on my PC! — Wed, 01 May 2013 14:01:21 GMT

The problem I have been working on a project that contains SharePoint 2010 WSP packages and a MSI distributed WPF application. These projects are all in a single solution with their unit tests. I have been getting a problem with our TFS 2012.2 build system...(read more)

Follow the Yorkshire Global Windows Azure Event

But it works on my PC! — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 09:48:33 GMT

Today Black Marble is hosting the Yorkshire Global Windows Azure Bootcamp event. To see what is happening check out the photos on our Facebook gallery and the #GlobalWindowsAzure Twitter hashtag...(read more)

Thanks for attending my webinar on lab management

But it works on my PC! — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:58:24 GMT

Thanks to everyone who attended my webinar session today in TFS Lab Management, I hope the audio issues were not too much of a problem and you found the session useful. We are looking into the causes of the audio problem so hopefully the next webinar...(read more)

Lab Management webinar next week

But it works on my PC! — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 15:53:30 GMT

If you are interested finding out more about TFS Lab Management why not come to the Black Marble Bite size webinar next Tuesday (23rd April). I will be giving a basic overview of the product and discussing some of our experiences implementing it....(read more)

Our upgrade to TFS 2012.2 has worked OK

But it works on my PC! — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 13:57:47 GMT

I have mentioned in past posts the issues we had doing our first quarterly update for TFS 2012 . Well today we had scheduled our upgrade to 2012.2 and I am please to say it all seems to have worked. Unlike the last upgrade, this time we were doing nothing...(read more)

Great event in Antwerp

But it works on my PC! — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 11:46:47 GMT

I had a great time yesterday at the VISUG Conference in Antwerp , thanks to everyone involved in event. The ALM track organiser Pieter and all the speakers, myself, Martin and Neno , were really pleased to see how full our room was all day. There certainly...(read more)

Error TF400129: Verifying that the team project collection has space for new system fields when upgrading TFS to 2012.2

But it works on my PC! — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 14:02:30 GMT

Whist testing an upgrade of TFS 2010 to TFS 2012.2 I was getting a number of verification errors in the TFS configuration upgrade wizard. They were all TF400129 based such as TF400129: Verifying that the team project collection has space for new system...(read more)

Lab Management with SCVMM 2012 and /labenvironmentplacementpolicy:aggressive

But it works on my PC! — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 11:05:52 GMT

I did a post a year or so ago about setting up TFS Labs and mentioned command C:\Program Files\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010\Tools>tfsconfig lab /hostgroup /collectionName:myTpc /labenvironmentplacementpolicy:aggressive /edit /Name:"My...(read more)

Kerbal Space Program - Its educational and written in Mono too!

But it works on my PC! — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 11:35:26 GMT

My son is really taken with Kerbal Space Program . This great games allows you to design your own space craft and so run your own on-going space program, all with a realistic physics engine. What is particularly nice is that this cross platform...(read more)

TF900548 when using my Typemock 2012 TFS custom build activity

But it works on my PC! — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 21:52:25 GMT

Using the Typemock TFS 2012 Build activity I created I had started seen the error TF900548: An error occurred publishing the Visual Studio test results. Details: 'The following id must have a positive value: testRunId.' I thought it might be down...(read more)

Black Marble is hosting the Yorkshire Chapter of the Global Windows Azure Bootcamp on the 27th of April

But it works on my PC! — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 12:45:51 GMT

Black Marble is hosting the Yorkshire Chapter of the Global Windows Azure Bootcamp taking place in several locations globally on the April 27th, 2013. This free community organised event is one day deep dive class where you will get you up to speed on...(read more)

Installing a DB from a DACPAC using Powershell as part of TFS Lab Management deployment

But it works on my PC! — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 16:45:53 GMT

I have been battling setting up a DB deployed via the SQL 2012 DAC tools and Powershell. My environment was a network isolated pair of machines DC – the domain controller and SQL 2012 server IIS – A web front end As this is network isolated I could...(read more)

You don’t half get strange errors when two servers have the same SID

But it works on my PC! — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 17:30:03 GMT

You don’t half get strange errors when building a test environment if when you run SYSPREP’d each copy of your VM base image you forget to check the ‘generalize’ box If you forget this, as I did, each VM has a different name but the same SID. Basically...(read more)

Cannot run Microsoft Fakes based test if Typemock Isolator enabled

But it works on my PC! — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 15:07:22 GMT

With Microsoft Fakes moving to the Premium SKU of Visual Studio in 2012.2 ( CTP4 is now available ) more people will be looking at using them. I have just installed CTP4 and have seen a behaviour I don’t think I have not seen in the previous version of...(read more)

TFS TPC Databases and SQL 2012 availability groups

But it works on my PC! — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 13:46:00 GMT

Worth noting that when you create a new TPC in TFS 2012, when the TFS configuration DB and other TPC DBs are in SQL 2012 availability groups, the new TPC DB is not placed in this or any other availability group. You have to add it manually, and historically...(read more)

Recovering network isolated lab management environments if you have to recreate your SC-VMM server’s DB

But it works on my PC! — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 17:12:43 GMT

Whilst upgrading our Lab Management system we lost the SC-VMM DB. This has meant we needed to recreate environments we already have running on Hyper_V hosts but were unknown to TFS. If they were not network isolated this is straight forward, just recompose...(read more)