Error TF42028

Error TF42028 

Recently TFS throw the 42028 and 42025 error when the user attempts to run a build.

There are two very important things you went to check:

1. There are three main Build permissions: 

1. Administer a Build
2. Start a build
3. Edit Build Quality

• Contributors - to a project should get Start a build, but not the other two.
• Project Admin's -  should have all three.
• Readers - have none. And the Build Services group has all except Administer build.

2. The other important permissions are related to Version Control.
The Build Types are stored in version control at $/<teamproject>/TeamBuildTypes/<buildtypename>.
If the user doesn't have permissions to see those areas in version control, then they might have the problems you describe.
To check the security settings in version control, open the Source Control Explorer, navigate to the TeamBuildTypes folder, right click on the folder and select Properties. From there you can click on the Security tab and see what permissions contributors have to that folder.
To view the build types, you need Read permission.
To create a build type the user needs Read, Check In, and probably should also have Check Out.
By default the Contributors group has all those permissions, but you should double check. You may also want to check the permissions on the sub folders and files there as well.
If the "Inherit security settings" check box at the bottom is set, you also need to check the permissions of the Team Project folder, and the root $/.

Team Build TF42046: The Build Service used in the build process is not reachable

Team Build TF42046: The Build Service used in the build process is not reachable 

One of our customers report that Team Build suddenly stop working and shows TF42046 error...

In this case the service status was "stop", the account that runs the service was expired.

If you encounter the TF42046 error, you may want to make sure of a few things:

1. That Team Build is installed on the build machine. This can be found on the Team Foundation Server installation CD in the Build directory. Run setup to install Team Build
2. Make sure the Team Build Service is running. Open the services MMC snapin and look for Team Build Service. Make sure the service is running. Also note the account that the service runs as; you will need it for the next step
3. Make sure the Team Build Service account (from step 2) is in the “TFS Service Accounts” group. For more information see http://blogs.infosupport.com/raimondb/archive/2005/11/28/bbsvcacc.aspx
4. Make sure the designated Team Build port is listening and available thru any firewalls. By default, the port used is 9191. Open a command prompt on the build machine and run “netstat”. Make sure TCP port 9191 is listening. You may want to make sure The Team Build service has this port and not another application on the build server. Make sure this port is not blocked by the window’s firewall or any other firewall in you enterprise.
5. Make sure the paths defined in your PATH system variable do not have any invalid characters. This includes any “” around the paths. Part of the Team Foundation Build Client source code attempts to build the path to msbuild.exe using the paths defined in this environment variable. Unfortunately the exception that is thrown when the system attempt to call Path.Combine on a malformed path is masked by the misdirecting TF42046 error.
6. If all else fails, turn on verbose tracing by navigating to the build server’s build service install directory and uncomment the trace flags in the TeamBuildService.exe.config file. You can find this file at “<install drive>:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies\”. You can verify this directory by checking the run directory listed in the properties window of the TeamBuildService found in the services snapin.

Link between Team System Web Access to TFS notifications

Link between Team System Web Access to TFS notifications 

When using project alerts to get notified about WIT changes you get an email contains link to the project portal, follow the link will bring static and very basic page of the work item.

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

How to do this:

1. In TFS computer open the folder:
   %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server\Web Services\Services\v1.0\Transforms
2. Create a backup of the file WorkItemChangedEvent.xsl, which we will be editing in the next step.
3. Replace the text:
   
   <xsl:value-of select="DisplayUrl" />
   
   with:
   
   <xsl:value-of select="concat(substring-before(DisplayUrl,':8080/WorkItemTracking/WorkItem.aspx?artifactMoniker='),
   'http://TFS-Name:TSWA port/workitem.aspx?id=',substring-after(DisplayUrl,'artifactMoniker='))" />
   
4. Save the file and you are done.

Now when click the link inside the notification will bring you to dynamic work item details page.

Why Visual Studio Team System? - Part 1

Why Visual Studio Team System? - Part 1

Recently people are asking me: why should we use Team System in our company?

Although there is plenty of information available on the web, about Team System.
I have decided to write some posts about the advantage and disadvantage of the Team System.
I hope this will contributes for people to understand and help them decide if Team System is the right choice for their project or not.

Life Cycle Management

Application Life-Cycle Management (ALM) is not depends only on the developers, There are different tasks and jobs related to the application life cycle management, for instance:

• Infrastructure Architect  
• Developer
• Project Manager
• Tester
• Business Stakeholder
• Solution Architect

Each job has unique part in ALM process.

Application Life-Cycle Management and Software Developing Process

Common Complaints:

• “Building software in a team today is difficult.”
• “My team is spread out and specialized.”
• “Tools today don’t work well together.”
• “My team needs customizable process guidance.”
• "I need to be able to easily track projects.”

Characteristic of Application Life-Cycle Management:

• Difficulty in applying Methodologies.
• Tracking process becomes almost impossible.
• Numerous Technologies – high learning curve.
• Manual data gathering – problematic administration.
• Integration becomes difficult. 
• Difficult to work in multiple sites.

Visual Studio Team System

Visual Studio Team System integrates process guidance, prescriptive architectures, and life-cycle tools for successfully deploying solutions on the Windows platform. Team System includes proven process guidance, prescriptive architectural guidance, and solution accelerators that assist organizations in improving the predictability and reliability of delivering mission-critical solutions. Team System provides tools under unified platform to support the entire software development team:

Visual Studio Team System consists of:

• Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Architects, visual designers that enable architects, operations managers, and developers to design service-oriented solutions that can be validated against their operational environments
• Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals enables database Professionals with more control over their Microsoft SQL Server database throughout the application life cycle.
• Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Developers, advanced development tools that enable teams to build reliable, mission-critical services and applications
• Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Testers, advanced load testing tools that enable teams to verify the performance of applications prior to deployment
  • The Visual Studio Professional Edition award-winning developer tool forms the core of the Visual Studio Team System and is included in each of the three products listed above
• Visual Studio Team Suite, bundle of Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Architects, Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Developers, and Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Testers
• Visual Studio Team Foundation Server an extensible team collaboration server that enables all members of the extended IT team to effortlessly manage and track the progress and health of projects
• Proven process guidance, prescriptive architectural guidance, and solution accelerators that assist organizations in improving the predictability and reliability of delivering mission-critical solutions.

Use Team System to improve team collaboration and gain greater visibility and control of your software development processes.

While developing software, teams are required to track work items ranging from software requirements and bugs to change requests, and simple tasks. Normally, a software development process captures specific elements for each type of work item and also prescribes a workflow that helps to capture and enforce best practices.

Work items in Visual Studio Team System can be used to represent virtually any type of work on a project. Team System ships with a number of built-in types of work items, which are defined as part of a process template. Each work item type has a list of fields and rules that govern their contents and the way that they are displayed. In addition, each work item type also defines a workflow that must be followed by the team. Work items provide the basis for team collaboration and are the primary source of process metrics gathered in the Team System data warehouse. Additionally, work items are accessible through Microsoft Excel 2003,2007 and Microsoft Project 2003,2007 and can be customized to fit any process and any organization.

In conclusion Team System will bring
Better Communication and Improved Cooperation in Software Development

Characteristic of Visual Studio Team System:

• Integration between all projects participants.
• Enabling remote teams integration.
• Easy extensibility of VSTS services.
• Working on a common and unified platform.
• Tracking and controlling Methodologies.

End of part 1.