18 May 2010

TFS Administration Tool v2.0 Released

TFS, Utilities
With each release of Team Foundation Server, administration gets a little easier.  The release of TFS 2010 introduces the Team Foundation Administration Console (TFS Admin Console) providing a much simpler approach to administering Team Foundation Server.  However, even the TFS Admin Console does not provide any support for managing permissions between Team Projects, SharePoint, and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). That’s where the Team Foundation Server Administration Tool comes in… Here’s the official description from the TFS Admin Tool site: The TFS Administration Tool allows Team Foundation Server administrators to manage user permissions on all three platforms utilized by Team…
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14 May 2010

Check for Warnings/Errors Check-in Policy

Check-in Policies, TFS, Visual Studio 2010
A while back, I wrote about the Check for Warnings/Errors Check-in Policy – a custom check-in policy that I had developed for Team Foundation Server 2008.  Yesterday, I published version 2.1, updated for Team Foundation Server 2010, to the Visual Studio Gallery.  The features are the same as the TFS 2008 version with a couple of exceptions: You now have the ability to restrict the set of warnings to Code Contract warnings only. The settings for the check-in policy are now stored as TFS properties (more on this in an upcoming post). Here are the details… Usage: To add this…
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24 Apr 2010

TFS 2010 Power Tools Released

TFS, Utilities
The first official (RTM) release of the Team Foundation Server Power Tools for Team Foundation Server 2010 have been released.  There are three separate downloads available: TFS Power Tools April 2010 release – This is the main set of TFS Power Tools and contains the following high-level features: Alerts Explorer Best Practices Analyzer (BPA) Custom Check-in Policy Pack Process Editor Team Explorer Enhancements Team Foundation Power Tool (TFPT.exe) Team Members Windows PowerShell CmdLets Windows Shell Extensions Work Item Templates TFS MSSCCI Provider 2010 release - The Team Foundation Server MSSCCI Provider enables integrated use of Team Foundation Version Control with products that…
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21 Apr 2010

Visual Studio 2010/TFS 2010 Utility Roundup

TFS, Utilities, Visual Studio 2010
Well, Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010 have been “in the wild” for a little over a week now.  Now that the RTM versions have had a few days to settle in, I decided to do a quick survey of some of my favorite utilities to see if they have been updated to support the final release of Visual Studio 2010 and TFS 2010.  Here is the list: GhostDoc (v2.5.09166) – this is a great add-in for Visual Studio to help with the mundane task of providing XML documentation for your code.  After using this utility for even…
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12 Apr 2010

Visual Studio 2010 Launches/RTMs!

Visual Studio, Visual Studio 2010
After months (years?) of anticipation, Visual Studio 2010 has finally launched/RTM’d!  If you are a MSDN subscriber, you can download the full version from the MSDN Subscribers site.  The trial editions should be available on the Microsoft Downloads site soon. There are far too many new features in Visual Studio 2010 to be listed here.  However, here are a few links to get you started…     Visual Studio 2010 Home Page Compare Visual Studio 2010 Product Features Visual Studio 2010 Documentation Visual Studio 2010 Application Lifecycle Management What’s New in Visual Studio 2010 Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework…
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23 Mar 2010

OTSUG – What’s New for Testing in Visual Studio 2010 and TFS 2010

User Group
Please join us on Tuesday, March 23rd as Mike Douglas presents on "What’s New for Testing in Visual Studio 2010 and TFS 2010".  As we near the launch of Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010, this is a great opportunity to catch up on some of the new features being made available. Visit Omaha Team System User Group for full meeting details. Hope to see you there!
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16 Mar 2010

Team Explorer 2005 Update for TFS 2010 is Available

Team System, TFS, Visual Studio, Visual Studio 2010
If you are using Visual Studio 2005 (along with Team Explorer 2005) to access Team Foundation Server, an update patch has been released that will allow Team Explorer 2005 to communicate with Team Foundation Server 2010. In general, after installing the update patch, you will be able to use Visual Studio 2005 to access legacy (2005) TFS servers as well as TFS 2010 servers.  If you switch to a TFS 2010 server, you will be able to continue using the basic functionality of TFS but will not be able to utilize new TFS 2010 features (e.g. Branch Visualization, creating new…
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12 Mar 2010

Adding Properties to Artifacts within TFS 2010

TFS, TFS API
As you know, you can store a lot of information within Team Foundation Server – in the form of Work Items and Versioned Items (e.g. source code).  While these are great features within TFS there are times when you want to store other types of information within TFS and/or “tag” existing items with custom information.  For example, if you create a Visual Studio add-in for TFS, you might want to store the add-in’s properties within TFS such that they “follow” the developer from machine to machine – or - maybe you want to store some custom information with a specific…
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12 Mar 2010

Save on Visual Studio 2010 Professional and Pre-Order Now

Visual Studio, Visual Studio 2010
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional will launch on April 12 but you can beat the rush and secure your copy today by pre-ordering at the affordable estimated retail price of $549, a saving of $250. If you use a previous version of Visual Studio or any other development tool then you are eligible for this upgrade. Along with all the great new features in Visual Studio 2010 (see www.microsoft.com/visualstudio) Visual Studio 2010 Professional includes a 12-month MSDN Essentials subscription which gives you access to core Microsoft platforms: Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise, and Microsoft SQL Server 2008…
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07 Mar 2010

TechEd 2010 Birds-of-a-Feather Proposals Being Accepted

Conferences
The Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) volunteer organizing team is now accepting proposals from discussion leaders for BOF sessions at Tech-Ed 2010 in New Orleans June 7-10.  BOF sessions are community-led open discussions on any technology related topic.  No code, no slides, just discussion. You don't have to be an expert on the topic, just passionate or knowledgeable enough to lead a discussion. There will also be a session moderator to help keep the discussion flowing smoothly. To submit a proposal visit http://northamerica.msteched.com/Birds-of-a-Feather.  The deadline for proposal is Monday, April 5th. (Note: proposals are reviewed in the order submitted so the sooner the…
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