Until today when you searched in MSDN for a topic you could easily confuse between the different versions of a product for example reading a feature for TFS 2008 when you searched for the feature for TFS 2010.

Microsoft now added a Topic Version Selector that lets you choose the version of the product you need.

I think this is a small feature that makes life much easier and the MSDN more usable.

Have Fun!!!

Microsoft has released the final lab management version, with this version Microsoft has released some fixes and new functionality.

The Fixes and New Functionality refers to the following:

Install/Upgrade

• Labels created in TFS2008 do not contain items after migration to TFS 2010 under certain rename/delete conditions.
• TFS Cannot be re-installed (ATOnly) targeting a database that was patched before.
• Tfs2010Beta2ToRTM operation is not executed when RC database is upgraded by post RTM server (RTM + Patch1 or SP1).

TFS Build

• VS2008 “smart device” projects pick up the 2010 MSTEST rather than the 2008 one.
• Unavailable build agents are pinged indefinitely rather than giving up after an hour.
• Duplicate changeset listings in build report.
• Test results for VS2008 solution not published in case of a failed test.
• Cannot delete build drops if a controller goes down
• Open Process File Location” grayed out on menu- right click on a build definition when connected to a TFS 2008 server

Version Control

• Branch from label has been removed in TFS 2010 – now it’s back.
• Convert folder to branch on a hierarchy root folder with children and cycle renames crashes VS.
• Unshelve reports bogus errors about a null DownloadUrl when dependent renames are shelved and child item names overlap.
• Incorrect query plan on QueryPendingChanges when querying all users pending changes can lead to bad performance.
• merge /discard in both directions causes unnecessary “empty” merges in future merge attempts.
• Issue in merge causes a conflict not to be generated when there is a rename in the target and source.
• Overly aggressive automatic detection of file encoding can result in inappropriate encoding mismatches during merges.

Work Item Tracking

• Work item queries containing references to deleted fields can cause a red X on the work items node.

Team Web Access

• Firefox Browser: "Link Selected Items to a New Work Item" and other dialogs don't launch pages successfully
• Chrome Browser: Adding an attachment doesn't work
• Chrome Browser: Select Query Dropdown doesn't work in Choose Work Items window
• Chrome Browser: Retain/Delete a build in Build Report page will get an exception “Unexpected callback response”
• Query Picker Web Part Incorrectly Renders List Items (Rows) in List View (Overflow DIVs) within WebKit-based Browsers (including Safari, Chrome, etc)

Note: Taken from Brian Harries Post “TFS 2010 updates coming to a download site near you”

The update should be installed on any machine that has: Visual Studio 2010 (All versions), TFS 2010, Test Controller, Build Machine, Test Agent or Lab Agent.

The Patch You Need To Install On Your Clients And Server

Have Fun!!!

There is a repeating question that I am being asked a lot, “Can TFS be integrated with other tools?”

The answer to that question is “Yes” TFS has a wide API to connect to so I can write a tool that connects to the API of the TFS from one side and to the API of the other tool from the other side, the result is a connector that integrates between the tools.

Today the answer is even simpler, Microsoft has seen the need in the market to connect TFS to other tools and released an Integration Platform with a few connectors out of the box and the ability to create custom connectors.

you can download the TFS Integration Platform from: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/5a8d1703-7987-4081-ba2f-9d0b68b0ed3e

Have Fun!!!

There is a change in the TFS 2010 Release version working with the MSProject.

This change has confused me too when I first so it although I have worked a lot with the MSProject and TFS and have trained many users using it.

What is the symptom?

When creating tasks in MSProject and assigning duration for these tasks the Remaining Work and Completed Work fields in TFS Work Items stay “0” instead of getting the values of the duration.

What is the reason for that and how it really works?

The mapped fields from the MSProject are:

Remaining Work –> Remaining Work (MSProject)

Completed Work –> Actual Work (MSProject)

The formula is: Work = Remaining Work + Actual Work

When creating a new task and assigning Duration the Duration is being copied to the Work field and the Work field is filling the Remaining Work field.

What appends in TFS 2010 release version is that “Work” field is only updated when the task has a resource only than the “Duration” field value will be copied to the “Work” field.

So in order to get the values for these two fields we will need to stop use the nice shortcut of: “I will assign the task later” and start working with assigned resource for each task being updated to the TFS.

Lets take an example:

Action: I am creating a new task name Demo in MSProject with duration of 2 days and Publish the task to TFS.

Result: Remaining work is 0 and Completed work is 0

Action: I am assigning the task to: Eran Ruso and publish the task to TFS

Result: Remaining work is now 16 hours and Completed Work is 0

By the way what about “Estimation (Original)” field, this field will have a value when I set the Baseline in MSProject, it gets its value from “Work Baseline” MSProject field

Have Fun!!!

I am not a DBA or a Database expert but this task is quite common (At least as I see it)

To change a Database owner all you need to do is use the stored procedure “sp_changedbowner” with the new User Name.

The SQL Query is: “EXEC sp_changedbowner ‘[Domain]\[UserName]’

You will need to execute it on the required database and that is all.

Have Fun!!!

The MTLM has a very nice feature, it alouse you to copy the shortcut of a test plan.

There are a lot of things you can do with this very simple feature, for example:

• You can send the shortcut by mail
• You can paste it to a document or a work item
• You can send it with an Instant messaging tool
• and more…

I like to show you another usage of this feature, you can create Desktop Icons for your Test Plans.

Just follow these steps:

Step 1: Launch the MTLM

Step 2: Get to the Test Plans page

Step 3: Choose the required plan

Step 4: Click the “Copy URL for plan” button

Step 5: Go to your Desktop

Step 6: Right click your desktop, choose “New –> Shortcut”

Step 7: Paste the URL to the like text box

Step 8: Click Next and type the Test Plan name (Or any different text)

Step 9: Click Finish

The result is an icon for a shortcut for your Test Plan

Create your other Test Plans shortcuts by repeating the steps so you will finally have a nice dashboard of your Test Plan Shortcuts.

Have Fun!!!