TFS » A Developer's Life

17 Oct 2013

TFVC vs. TF-Git Survey Results

OneDrive, Surveys, TF-Git, TFS, TFVC

Several weeks ago I posted a survey asking for your thoughts about Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC) vs. Git within Team Foundation Server/Service (TF-Git). With a total of 27 respondents, here are the results of the survey questions: Which version of Team Foundation Server are you using? I have to admit that I find it interesting that 45% of the respondents are using Team Foundation Service. It would be interesting to see if this statistic holds with a larger group of TFS customers. What is your primary version control repository? In this case, about 70% are using TFVC with the…

17 Oct 2013

Visual Studio 2013 RTM Available

TFS, Visual Studio 2013

Today, Microsoft released Visual Studio 2013 RTM (Release to Manufacturing), which includes Team Foundation Server 2013, for public availability. The .NET Framework 4.5.1 is also included in this release. See what’s new in Visual Studio 2013 here. You can download Visual Studio 2013 now, from: Full Versions MSDN Subscribers – if you’re an MSDN subscriber then you can download the non-trial version now. Trial Versions – if you are not an MSDN subscriber, or simply want to install a trial version, you can download the trial products now. Products available for download include: Visual Studio Ultimate 2013 Visual Studio Premium…

08 Oct 2013

Keep Team Foundation Server Hummin’

TFS, Tips

Based on his experiences in the field, Grant Holliday has put together a great checklist of tasks to help you keep Team Foundation Server running smoothly. The list is comprised of the following categories of tasks: The initial setup and provisioning of the hardware, operating system and SQL platform Regular OS system administrator tasks Regular SQL DBA tasks TFS-specific configurations Regular TFS administrator tasks To see the full checklist, read the post here.

26 Sep 2013

TFVC vs. TF-Git – A Quick Survey

OneDrive, Surveys, TF-Git, TFS, TFVC

I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately about whether it would make sense for our application development teams to make the move to Team Foundation Git (TF-Git) as the primary version control choice within TFS. We are still using TFS 2010 as our primary TFS instance today although we have several projects in Team Foundation Service (TFService) as part of a pilot. As we make preparations to move to TFS 2013 (we have not yet decided if we’ll host TFS 2013 on premises or if we’ll make exclusive use of the TFService) we are putting some thought into whether…

20 Sep 2013

TFS 2013 Power Tools Released

TFS, Utilities, Visual Studio

As of today, you can download the just-released Team Foundation Server 2013 Power Tools (compatible with TFS 2013 RC). If you’re not familiar with the TFS Power Tools, and you spend any amount of time working with TFS on a day-to-day basis, I highly recommend you check these out.This release is comprised of four separate downloads:Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2013 Power Tools - this is a collection of multiple tools, including:Best Practices Analyzer (TFS application tier only)Check-in PoliciesProcess Template EditorStoryboard ShapesTeam Explorer EnhancementsTeam Foundation Power Tool Command Line (tfpt.exe)Test Attachment CleanerWindows PowerShell CmdletsWindows Shell ExtensionsWork Item TemplatesMicrosoft Visual…

12 Sep 2013

TFS Build Manager for VS 2013 Updated

Add-ins & Extensions, TFS, Utilities

Today, the Community TFS Build Extensions on CodePlex released an update to the Community TFS Build Manager VS2013 add-in. If you spend any time at all managing multiple build definitions, build results, and/or build servers, then you need to give this add-in a try.Updates & fixes include:NEW - Search and replace workspace mappings NEW - Filter Build Definitions via text NEW - Access build logs in web access NEW - Build Duration and Agent Name columns NEW - Friendly Trigger Names NEW - Easily queue high priority builds NEW - Clone to Project FIX - Case insensitive comparisons when changing…

17 Aug 2013

TFS Agile Poker for Windows 8

ALM, TFS, Utilities, Windows 8

If you have been involved with agile software development in any form or fashion, chances are you’ve spent some time estimating effort or relative size of user stories. This is often done by selecting a card from a special planning poker deck. A typical planning poker deck is based on a Fibonacci sequence (e.g. 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8…) though the sequence is sometimes modified after 13 for even numbers (e.g. 20, 40, 100). This process works fairly well when all participants are located relatively close to each other (i.e. in the same room). What if the team members…

08 Jun 2013

Demystifying Microsoft’s Git Offering

Git, TFS

Although Microsoft is definitely late to the distributed version control (DVC) game, they’re pretty much in the game now and their DVC offering is only getting better. In order to provide distributed capabilities within its current version control offering, Team Foundation Server, the Visual Studio team had to make a decision: build something brand new (possibly proprietary) or build on one of the standard DVC platforms. They decided to go with the latter and build upon Git. A great decision as far as I am concerned. But, Before That… Before we get to the Visual Studio offering, let’s take a…

02 May 2013

TFS Live app for Windows Phone

Team Foundation Service, TFS, Windows Phone

If you happen to 1) work with Microsoft’s Team Foundation Service (TFService) or another publically accessible TFS server and 2) own a Windows 8 Phone, then you will want to check out the tfs live app for Windows Phone. The tfs live app provides quick, at-a-glance totals for the various types of work items you’re most interested in. When you install the app and run it for the first time, you will have to configure the app to connect to your TFS server: Although a template has been provided for the server URL (as shown in the above image), it…

05 Apr 2013

Visual Studio/TFS Update 2 Released

TFS 2012, Visual Studio 2012

The latest update for Visual Studio 2012 and Team Foundation Server 2012, Update 2, has been released. There is a lot of new functionality included in this release and rather than duplicate all the details here, I’ll simply refer you to this post on the Visual Studio ALM + Team Foundation Server Blog as well as this link. I would like to point out the download links: Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 with Update 2 Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server Express 2012 with Update 2 IntelliTrace Collector for Visual Studio Remote Tools for…

Category: TFS