Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) Blog - by Neno Loje : Team Foundation Version Control

See and possibly unlock files checked out by other team members

neno — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:51:49 GMT

Ed Hintz points out that this is easily done with TFS Power Tools and wrote about it in 2007.

In the Source Control Explorer, right click on a parent folder that contains the pending change and choose, “Find in Source Control”.
Choose "Status…".
Press the Find button. (optionally you can type in a user and\or wildcards if you want to narrow the search)
You will be presented a “Find in Source Control” window.
Select the pending change and press the undo button OR right click Undo…
Done.

Customizing the folders and file extensions automatically excluded

neno — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:21:29 GMT

When adding items to source control a list of excluded folders as well as file extensions is shown. You can customize those defaults in the registry.

Matthew Mitrik has the details:

If the add operation is successfully completed, the list will be saved to the registry.

Order of finding masks to filter:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\[Version]\TeamFoundation\SourceControl\AddOptions\ExcludeMasks
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\[Version]\TeamFoundation\SourceControl\AddOptions\ExcludeMasks

(Thanks to Rich and Matt)

How TFSDeleteProject Works

neno — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:42:43 GMT

There are some areas where data may remain behind after you use TFSDeleteProject.

The TFS Warehouse is untouched. In order to remove the data from the warehouse, it must be rebuilt. (It is important to notice that, when the warehouse is rebuilt all the historic build data that has been trimmed from the system will be removed.) Rebuilding the warehouse is accomplished using the command SetupWarehouse. For more information, see SetupWarehouse.
The build drop locations (i.e., the location where the build binaries, build log files, and test results log files are published during the build process) are untouched. Removing the build drops must be done manually.
Any work item tracking metadata that is shared between projects will not be deleted.
The version control shelve set may not be deleted if there is code in the shelve set from multiple projects.

Read the full story by Aaron Block.

How to revert changes checked into TFS Version Control

neno — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 18:55:49 GMT

Objective

We did some changes to a file and now want to revert to an older version of that same file. In the concrete scenario we added a method called "Multiply" with changeset 8 and want to go back to the version of changeset 7.

Step-By-Step guide using the UI

Step 1: Get the version of the file you want to revert to into your workspace

Note: verify that the file really contains the version you expect and want to revert back to!

Step 2: Check out the file for editing

Note: You can freely specify a lock here to make sure none else checks in a new version of the file you are just trying to revert

Step 3: Check in the change you just made

Your check-in will generate a version conflict:

This conflict has to appear so that you don't accidently check in old stuff. You now have to confirm that you really want to override the version that is currently checked in with the older version in your workspace.

The conflict is now resolved:

The check-in was aborted due to the conflicts:

Step 4: Check-in again

Note: If you accidently reverted back to an old version you can use the same steps to open a newer version and upload this as the very latest version again.

Total: 20 clicks.

Alternative using the command-line tools (less clicks)

Instead of 20+ clicks you might think about automating these steps using TF.exe – and are down to 5 commands.

tf get MyClass.cs /version:C8
tf checkout MyClass.cs
tf checkin /noprompt /validate
tf resolve /auto:AcceptYours
tf checkin /comment:"Reverting to older version!" /noprompt

Here's ready to use batch file, which takes two parameters:

%1: Name of the file you want to revert.
%2: Version of the file, e.g. if changeset number when C7 stands for changeset 7

Although we use command line commands the check in dialog will pop up to allow us to specify check-in comments, notes and associate work items.

Download: RevertScript.zip

TFS Branching Guide 2.0

neno — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 12:12:04 GMT

Original announcement:

Since the first release, we have received lots of feedback and change requests. Most feedback indicated a desire for a more practical approach to branching compared to the first release which is more theoretical. With that in mind, we decided to reduce the conceptual part and focus on branching practices with Team Foundation Server.

What is in the package?

TFS Branching Guide - Main 2.0

This is the main article which briefly explains branching concepts and introduces 3 levels of the most common branching scenario

TFS Branching Guide - Scenarios 2.0

A collection of less common branching scenarios

TFS Branching Guide - Q&A 2.0

A set of most frequently asked questions with answers

TFS Branching Guide - Drawings 2.0

A set of branching drawings in different formats including a large branching poster

TFS Branching Guide - Labs 2.0

A couple of examples for hands on labs with step by step instruction for practicing the branching scenarios

Download: here

Q: How can I exclude a file from code churn?

neno — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 13:32:19 GMT

A: You can change it's encoding in version control to Binary.

Background:

The code churn value used by TFS report, like the Quality Indicators report, might not make any sense to you if files this value includes some specific files, like auto-generated files, that were not created/edited by humans.

Disadvantages:

Comparing binary files in the command line or UI will just result in "Binary files differ" rather than a diff viewer showing the changes.
By default, multiple checkouts of binary files are not allowed.

Step-by-Step instructions:

(Thanks to Brian Harry for this tip.)

Version Control Tip: Excluding specific files from multiple checkout

neno — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 18:34:11 GMT

Question:

Can I define a file name, not only a file type (extension), if multiple checkout is allowed for the whole Team Foundation Server?

Answer:

Yes, that is possible, although the UI shows "file extensions" and displays it in a way that you might think that it's not supported.

As a result you can specify that *.cs files in general do support multiple checkout but a certain file called "specific.cs" follows exclusive-checkout logic.

Enjoy!

-Neno

CVS / StarTeam to TFS migration tools (3rd party)

neno — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 21:40:31 GMT

From their website:

"Timely Migration currently provides modules that support migration from CVS and Borland StarTeam. Support for additional products will be added in the future."

Link to website: Timlely Migration

FIX: TFS 2008: Delete lost when you merge from delete-branch to trunk

neno — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:22:00 GMT

> KB article

> Hotfix download

Team Foundation Proxy - Your friend for distributed development teams

neno — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:14:00 GMT

Since you can only deploy one master TFS server and replication mechanisms are not supported you might consider using a TFS Proxy server, which caches the downloads from the Team Foudation Version Control.

Functionality / What it does:

Cache downloads from Version Control only. Control Messages and other artifacts like work items are still transferred directly between client (Visual Studio) and server (TFS).

Read more about how the proxy works.

Licensing:

From a licensing perspective the TFS Proxy costs you one (additional) TFS license.

See also: Licensing whitepaper.

Installation

You find the installation files on your TFS CD under Proxy\setup.exe.

After the installation is complete you need to modify the configuration file.

See also: hardware requirements.

More Information (including all links mentioned above):

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!

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

TFS 2008 Trials: How to extend the trial?

neno — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 11:01:00 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

Check-In is slow when using exclusive check-out?

neno — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 12:53:00 GMT

It’s still hot: Microsoft released a fix for slow check-in’s if you’re using exclusive check-out feature yesterday:

FIX: The check-in process may be very slow when you use the Source Control feature in Visual Studio 2005 Team System

Changing TFS email notifications to link to Team System Web Access

neno — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:44:37 GMT

Thanks to this MSDN Forums post I was able to change the link included in every TFS notification e-mail to point to TSWA instead of the project portal.

Here’s the full story:

When using project alerts to get notified about work item changes you get an email containing a link to the project portal:

If you follow the link you might get a bit dissapointed when looking at this very basic work item details page:

Since Team System Web Access is now avaible from Microsoft free of charge we can change the link in the template for all notification messages to point to the new TSWA.

Changing the e-mail template

On the TFS app tier open the folder:
%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server\Web Services\Services\v1.0\Transforms
Create a backup of the file WorkItemChangedEvent.xsl, which we will be editing in the next step.
Replace the text:

<xsl:value-of select="DisplayUrl" />

with:

<xsl:value-of select="concat(substring-before(DisplayUrl,':8080/WorkItemTracking/WorkItem.aspx?artifactMoniker='),':8090/wi.aspx?id=',substring-after(DisplayUrl,'artifactMoniker='))" />

The bold printed 8090 is the port where you installed TSWA at.
Save the file and you are done.

If you now get a new notification e-mail and click on the link you’ll see the following much nicer work item details form provided by TSWA:

Note: Be aware that you either need to use Windows authentication with TSWA to make this work or you need to be already logged in and the session must be still alive.

I published a 2nd part: Changing TFS emails to link to Team System Web Access – Part 2

Tool for creating links to pages on Team System Web Access

neno — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:34:20 GMT

Would you like to send links to work items, team projects or source files on Team System Web Access?

For work items
… you can find the answer in the offical TSWA FAQ:

Q: What’s the URL to use if I want to send the link of a specific work item?

A: Work item links use the follwing format:

http://[TSWA:port]/wi.aspx?id=[WorkItemID]

For Team Projects
… it also pretty simple:

http://[TSWA:port]/index.aspx?pname=[ProjectName]

For Source Files
… it’s a little bit more “interesting” (thanks to Hakan from Microsoft for reveiling the details behind this secret).

It’s a bit tricky but here it goes:

http://[TSWA:port]/UI/Pages/Scc/ViewSource.aspx?scc-item=[ItemData]

ItemData is the HtmlEncoded output of the query string something like “id=10&cs=-1”

id: the ID of the item in source control (you need to know this instead of the file path)

cs: changeset number (-1: latest)

In your example, the file id is 151611. So,

HtmlEncode(“id=151611&cs=-1”) -> “id%3D151611%26cs%3D-1”

https://[TSWA:port]/UI/Pages/Scc/ViewSource.aspx?scc-item=id%3D151611%26cs%3D-1

[We’re planning to provide more friendly URLs in a future version, similar to wi.aspx approach]

To make it fast and more convenient to create links to TSWA I created a small tool to help you with it:

It should be mentioned that this tool has a lot of room for improvement. :-)

You can download the source from an updated version here.

How to remove someone else's workspace in TFS

neno — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 15:59:27 GMT

A customer asked:

“During my vacation my collegue was working on my machine and mapped the solution file to D:\Projects. Now I returned and wanted to map the solution to that folder as well, which obviously doesn’t work since it is already mapped.

How can I get rid of the workspace that my collegue has on my machine? (Since he won’t be working on my machine anymore it can be freely deleted.)”

First of all: you obviously need to be either the owner of the workspace or have the Administer workspaces permission on the Team Foundation Server to perform this.

Deleting a workspace using the command line

The command is:

tf workspace /delete [/server:servername] workspacename[;workspaceowner]

Source: MSDN

Deleting a workspace using GUI

If you prefer a rich UI you can use the free Team Foundation Sidekicks tool by Attrice Corp.

Listing version control changes with check-in comments using TFS

neno — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 16:36:34 GMT

You can easily query for changes on a team project or a specified version control folder underneath and display them in a list with the check-in comments.

By using Team System Web Access (TSWA):

Note: I’m showing this first because the dialog is very comfortable, e.g. you can filter by user or time range.

In TSWA on the “Source” tab, right-click any folder (team project folder or sub-folder) and select “Find Changesets”.
In the “Find Changesets” dialog, select the desired filter criteria and confirm with “Find” to generate a list of changesets with check-in comments.

By using Visual Studio Team Explorer:

In Team Explorer under “Source Control”, right-click any folder and choose “View History” from the context menu.
The “History” window is shown with a list of all changesets (again with check-in comments) of the folder and sub-folders, which – as far as I know – cannot be filtered further.

By using Team Foundation Sidekicks (a free tool by Attrice):

Start Team Foundation Sidekicks and open the History Sidekick by clicking on the third toolbar button (the clock with an arrow on it).
On the left side, select a folder by clicking on it.
On the right side in the “History” tab you will see the changes with an option to filter them by user.

Posters can make complex things easy to remember

neno — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 15:49:16 GMT

Willy-Peter Schaub [1], a fellow VSTS MVP [2], is our "king of Posters" when it comes to visualize complex things from Microsoft recommendation and best practices papers into nice and easy-to-remember posters!

Microsoft Team System Branching poster [3]
Microsoft Team System Security Mapping
Microsoft Team System Single Server Deployment
Microsoft Team System Source Control
Microsoft Team System
Microsoft Team System Process Overview
Microsoft Team System Source Control
Microsoft Team System Single Server Install
Microsoft Team System Security Mapping
and many more (also not VSTS/TFS-related)

You can download them under Posters at www.drp.co.za [4] and after you discover all the posters you like you probably won't have any free spot on the wall left. :-)

Happy "Wall-Filling"!

[1] http://dotnet.org.za/willy/default.aspx

[2] https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/communities/mvp.aspx?product=1&competency=Visual+Developer+-+Team+System

[3] http://dotnet.org.za/willy/archive/2007/04/24/0202-microsoft-team-system-branching-poster-beta2-posted-on-www-drp-co-za.aspx

[4] http://www.drp.co.za/Media/Posters/tabid/73/Default.aspx

[Tip] Shortcut Key for Pending Changes Window

neno — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 14:01:12 GMT

Can't find a window anymore? That's no problem since you can find all the tool windows in the corresponding menu in Visual Studio.

Looking for Windows in VS

It's under the View menu:

Well, sometimes also unter the View » Other Windows menu:

If it's one of the test windows (Test View, Test Results, Test Manager, Code Coverage Results, Test Runs) you better start looking at Test » Windows (instead of View):

And last but not least there is of course the Window menu. But you can't find your windows here unless there are already open.

Use keyboard shortcuts

Now a quicker solution is to use keyboard shortcuts to tool windows more extensively. In our scenario we want to be able to open the Pending Changes Window.

You can specify or customize keyboard shortcuts in the Tools » Options dialog in Visual Studio:

From the treeview select Keyboard, enter "View.TfsPendingChanges" in the "Show Command containing" text box and the desired shortcut into the Press shortcut keys box (just press the keys you want to map) and finally hit Assign.

In this example I mapped the combination Ctrl + P, Ctrl + C (which stands for Pending Changes) to the View » Pending Changes command.

-Neno