Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) Blog - by Neno Loje

Screen Gallery: Creating a Team Project in TFS 2008

neno — Sun, 11 May 2008 16:30:31 GMT

Screenshots from a successful team project creation.

Screen Gallery: Upgrading WSS 2.0 to WSS 3.0

neno — Sun, 11 May 2008 11:40:57 GMT

You updated to TFS 2008, but since the upgrade process doesn't touch your already installed WSS you are responsible for upgrading it yourself.

Official Guidance:

Upgrading SharePoint Products and Technologies for Team Foundation Server

Step 1: Run Prescan.EXE

Resulting log file:

Resulting XML file:

Step 2: Install WSS 3.0

Step 3a: Upgrade (invoked automatically by setup)

(Be aware: if you do not use the same port as your TFS is configured to talk to today you need to change the TFS registration using TFSAdminUtil afterwards!)

Step 3b: Still Upgrade (not in the web browser)

Step 4: Finalization (manual step)

Step 5: Uninstall WSS 2.0 (manual step)

Step 6: Install & configure TFS Extensions for WSS (located on the TFS media)

Step 7: Verify success by creating a new team project

Screen Gallery: Installing TFS Power Tools 2008

neno — Sun, 11 May 2008 11:29:36 GMT

Screenshots from a successful Power Tools installation

Step 1: Installing Windows PowerShell

Step 2: Installing TFS Power Tools

Screen Gallery: Installing Team System Web Access (TSWA) 2008

neno — Sun, 11 May 2008 11:27:03 GMT

Screenshots of a successful Team System Web Access (TSWA) installation.

Requires: Team Explorer 2008 to be installed.

Open TSWA to verify it's working:

Screen Gallery: Installing Team Build 2008

neno — Sun, 11 May 2008 11:15:01 GMT

Screenshots from a successful Team Build installation

Screen Gallery: Installing TFS 2008 (single-tier)

neno — Sun, 11 May 2008 11:13:32 GMT

Screenshots of a successful TFS 2008 singe-tier installation.

Step 1: Installing IIS

Step 2: Installing SQL Server 2005

And verify it's working:

Apply SQL Server 2005 SP2:

Step 3: Installing TFS 2008

Uninstalling TFS 2005 (services) on the app tier removes reporting services virtual directories

neno — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:19:39 GMT

After uninstalling TFS 2005 (services) from a standby TFS application tier the SQL Server Reporting Services were not available, i.e. browsing http://server/reports and http://server/reportserver/ resulted in a 404 error.

Workaround:

Run the Reporting Services Configuration Tool and recreate both virtual directories and re-configure the identities.

(Thanks to Daniel Hackel who administers this environment.)

TF220064 when trying to upgrade to TFS 2008

neno — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:25:22 GMT

I you received:

TF220064: An error occurred while the Setup program was querying the settings from the server that is running SQL Server Reporting Services. This error is most likely caused by your account not having the required administrative permissions on the server that is running Reporting Services. Click Next to try again. For more information about this error, see the installation logs. For more information about the installation logs, see “Troubleshooting Installation for Team Foundation” in the Team Foundation Installation Guide.

Cause:

You probably use FQDN names for your reporting services server as explained here.

Workaround:

Change URI for the ReportsService to use a NETBIOS name instead of a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) - and revert it back after successful setup.

(Special thanks to Daniel Hackel who administers this environment and had to go all the upgrade trouble as well.)

Problem when upgrading to TFS 2008: Setup has detected that the specified database server is already in use by another Team Foundation Server (services) computer...

neno — Mon, 05 May 2008 19:55:09 GMT

When trying to upgrade to TFS 2008 you receive the following error message on your primary AT shortly after starting the setup program

"Setup has detected that the specified database server is already in use by another Team Foundation Server (services) computer. Click OK to configure this computer as a stand-by Team Foundation Server (services) computer. Click Cancel to specify a different database server."

Cause:

You are using a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) to reference your Team Foundation Server application tier.

Workaround:

Remove the FQDN (run the ActivateAt command with the NETBIOS name), i.e. change it back to the regular NETBIOS name.
Apply the TFS 2008 upgrade.
Re-apply the FQDN.

Update: There is an official KB article now.

Enjoy TFS 2008!

(Thanks to Daniel Hackel who adminsters this environment.)

TFS 2008: Team Build doesn't get subfolders of team build type folder by default

neno — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 01:05:03 GMT

In TFS 2005 subfolders of your team build type folder were copied recursively to the build temp directory. In TFS 2008 only the contents w/o recursion is copied.

To change this behavior, Aaron tells us, you need to modify the following line

<add key="ConfigurationFolderRecursionType" value="Full" />

in the TfsBuildService.exe.config on your build machine.

Enjoy!

Which Visual Studio Edition do I need to use TFS?

neno — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 22:24:17 GMT

If you want Team Explorer to integrate with your existing Visual Studio IDE you need at least the Standard Edition of Visual Studio (according to the comparison sheet that Microsoft published).

Note on VSTS licensing:

Keep in mind that only the Team Editions (as well as Team Suite) comes with a client access license (CAL). You will need to buy a CAL for each user that accesses TFS using VS Std. or VS Pro.

Note for VS Express users:

You can use TFS and VS Express Edition, but Team Explorer will not integrate with the IDE but rather live in a separate Mini-Visual Studio (which will call itself 'Standard Edition').

Team Foundation Server 2008 trial expired?

neno — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:43:50 GMT

If you can't connect to your TFS anymore one reason might be that the trial expired.

To find you how many days you have left of the trial and to extend the trial you need the TFS Version Detection utility.

Starting 10 days before expiration you'll see the "Extend Trial" button...

... which will give you additional 30 days.

What's the difference between Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007?

neno — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:42:59 GMT

The answer lies in a very detailed Excel sheet:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointtechnology/HA101978031033.aspx?pid=CL100636421033

(Thanks to Richard for pointing me to it)

Documentation: Team Foundation Server SDK (online version)

neno — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 13:55:34 GMT

From the contents:

Team Foundation Server Extensibility

Team Foundation Server SDK Architecture

How to: Run Team Foundation Server SDK Samples

Team Foundation Core Services

Work Item Tracking Extensibility

Source Control Extensibility

Data Warehouse Extensibility

Reference for Team Foundation Server SDK

Link: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb130146(VS.80).aspx

How code churn is calculated in TFS 2005/2008

neno — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 13:51:28 GMT

Code churn [1] in TFS 2005 and TFS 2008 is calculated using a very simple algorithm: inserted + changed + deleted lines [2].

This is done independently of the contents of the line, which means that everything - incl. comments, blank lines, etc. - is counted.

[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/mohamedg/archive/2007/12/04/code-churn.aspx

[2] http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms244698(VS.80).aspx

FIX: An unexpected error occurred while trying to add a web part to a project portal in TFS 2005

neno — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 23:42:04 GMT

Due to a lot of requests about this pretty common problem.

Steps you did:

You browsed for a web part:
You selected one and hit "Add":
You got the error message: "An unexpected error occurred."

This is a know issue with WSS 2.0 and a hot fix [1] can be requested at Microsoft which corrects this behavior.

I tried this with various customers and we could then successfully add new web parts after applying it.

Enjoy!

[1] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/915746/en-us

Known Work Item History Limitations for Links & Attachments

neno — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 23:30:17 GMT

They are two major problems when looking into the history with regard to links.

1. No clue what has changed:
If you remove an attachment and add a completely different one the history will indicate that there was a change (revision gets in incremented by 1), but it won't tell you what has changed since TFS only tracks the numbers (e.g. number of external links).

2. Work Item links are only reflected in history on one side:

You have two work items: item 52 and item 53.

You decide to link item 53 with item 52.

Both items show the work item link under their "Links" tab.

Item 53 shows the new link in the history:

But the history of Item 52 shows no changes at all:

TFS 2008 Trials: How to extend the trial?

neno — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:01:12 GMT

Since Team Foundation Server 2008 was released end of November 2007 the early adopters which for some reasons have not obtained a product key yet are facing the problem of expiring trial licenses on their TFS servers.

I definitely recommend to find out when your TFS trial expires. You can use the Version Detector Tool [1], which Brian Harry [2] blogged about.

If you have trouble getting a product key in time:

From ten days before it expires you can extend the trial period for 30 additional days (using the tool mentioned above).
If that's not enough contact Microsoft to get additional 30 days.

Eventually people will check for the expiration date before they actually learn it the "hard way"...

So: don't be a fool, use the tool!

:-)

[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry/archive/2008/01/15/checking-your-tfs-version-and-extending-trials.aspx

[2] http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/techfellow/harry/default.mspx

Updated Area Import/Export Tool for TFS 2008

neno — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 01:11:30 GMT

You can download a new version of the Area Import/Export Tool, compiled against Team Explorer 2008, here.

Some Code Analysis Rules gone in Visual Studio 2008

neno — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 20:15:47 GMT

I was very sad to hear that a few beloved rules were removed from code analysis (aka FxCop) in Visual Studio 2008. Here’s a list of the removed rules:

Removed due to removal of data flow engine:

CA1062 ValidateArgumentsOfPublicMethods
CA1303 DoNotPassLiteralsAsLocalizedParameters
CA2100 ReviewSqlQueriesForSecurityVulnerabilities
CA2202 DoNotDisposeObjectsMultipleTimes
CA2204 LiteralsShouldBeSpelledCorrectly
CA2215 DisposeMethodsShouldCallBaseClassDispose
CA2241 ProvideCorrectArgumentsToFormattingMethods
CA2000 DisposeObjectsBeforeLosingScope

Removed due to high noise or no longer applicable analysis:

CA1807 AvoidUnnecessaryStringCreation
CA1817 DoNotCallPropertiesThatCloneValuesInLoops
CA1818 DoNotConcatenateStringsInsideLoops

Analysis in this rule was moved to IdentifiersShouldBeCasedCorrectly:

CA1705 LongAcronymsShouldBePascalCased
CA1706 ShortAcronymsShouldBeUppercase

Analysis in this rule was moved to IdentifiersShouldNotContainTypeNames:

CA1718 AvoidLanguageSpecificTypeNamesInParameters

Analysis in this rule was moved to OverrideLinkDemandsShouldBeIdenticalToBase:

CA2110 SecureGetObjectDataOverrides

For more information why those rules were moved or removed see this explaining post over on the Code Analysis Team Blog as well as this feedback on Microsoft Connect.