Ahmed Salijee

August 2007 - Posts

MSF Agile Activity Map

Check out the activity map at http://www.brightwork.com/msf/MS%20Agile%20B98%20web.htm. Even if you do not use MSF/Agile I think you will find it useful.

Access 2007 Developer Extensions and Runtime - freely downloadable

If you build Access solutions and want to redistribute them (to users without Access), you need the runtime. Previously these shipped as part of VSTO or other toolsets. The good news is that they are now free. Visit http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/office/bb229700.aspx for more information and download links.

TFS - How do I undo someone else's checkout

Option 1

Use the tf command line utility. You will run a command similar to:

tf undo /workspace

You can find more information here.

 

Option 2

Check out the really cool TFS Utilities from Attrice, especially the Sidekicks one for this particular issue. If you are using TFS, you really should check out these tool. They are free!

Posted: Aug 22 2007, 12:27 PM by ahmeds | with no comments
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Vista "calculating time required" bug fixed? Some pre-SP1 updates available

A couple of pre-SP1 updates for Vista are available. Instead of me reproducing what's out there, rather just check out http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/ArticleID/96749/96749.html?Ad=1 which has some info and the links.

I installed on Wed afternoon. I did not use my machine yesterday but today things do seem to run better. I have a machine with an nVidia card and these fixes are suppose to help.

TFS Q&A - Changing service accounts and adding users from the command line

Question: We installed TFS with using local accounts. We now need to add domain accounts into TFS and this requires that the TFS services accounts use a domain account. How can we change these accounts without a reinstall?

Answer: Check out TFSAdminUtil – a command line utility. See http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms253116(VS.80).aspx for more information.

 

Question: How do I add a user to a TFS Group from the command line?

Answer: Use the tfssecurity.exe command line tool

Eg:
add a domain user to the Project Administrators Group:
tfssecurity  /server:servername /g+ "[Project Name]\Project Administrators" n:Domain\username


add a domain user to the Server level “Team Foundation Administrators” Group:
tfssecurity  /server:servername /g+ "[server]\Team Foundation Administrators" n:Domain\username
 
remove a domain user from the Server level “Team Foundation Administrators” Group:
tfssecurity  /server:servername /g- "[server]\Team Foundation Administrators" n:Domain\username

Posted: Aug 08 2007, 08:59 AM by ahmeds | with 2 comment(s)
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Team Development with TFS Guide released

The guide from P&P has just been released. Visit http://www.codeplex.com/TFSGuide for the details and to download. A must have if you use, or intend to use, TFS.  More than 500 pages of guidance covering source control, build management, project management etc etc. 

Posted: Aug 07 2007, 08:14 AM by ahmeds | with no comments
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Just when you thought ...

After shipping Orcas Beta 2 and the TFS Web Access tool, you would have thought that I have enough to play with. The TFS team obviously thought differently. Over the weekend they shipped the first public CTP of Rosario - which is the TFS version after Orcas.

Check out this post by Jeff Beehler with the details. The one cool thing I will point out, which is a common request that I get when I deliver VSTS sessions, is the support for parent-child workitem relationships.

You can download the VPC from here. If you keen on just getting an overview than download the whitepaper.

Posted: Aug 06 2007, 09:48 AM by ahmeds | with no comments
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A day in the life - installing Orcas Beta 2

Removed (in this order)

Started approx 10:10AM (multitasking between 2 machines)

Microsoft ASP.NET Futures (May 07)

Silverlight Tools Alpha for Orcas

Silverlight

Expression Blend 3 May Preview

MSDN Library for Orcas (did a full uninstall)

Orcas TFS Build

Orcas TFS (received note that the databases are not removed)

Orcas Team Explorer

Orcas Team Suite (full uninstall)

Deleted all databases in SQLServer starting with TFS (did this while Team Suite was uninstalling)

had to restart after removing Team Suite

Removed Orcas Premier Partner Edition?

 

In Program Files removed following directories

Visual Studio 9.0

VS 9.0 TFS

In windows framework, removed v3.5 directory

 

Completed around 11am

 

Started the installation process

VSTS Team Suite (started around 11:04, finished around 12:00) - had to reboot

Installed the full MSDN Docs (2GB over the network). I expected this to take time and it did. Completed around 13:00

No problems at this stage.

Downloaded all the Silverlight and ASP.NET Futures bits while the MSDN Installation was busy (best site was http://silverlight.net/GetStarted)

Started to install TFS (the install screen shows the different things to install. Many people got confused about the Build Server install process in TFS05).

At some point it wanted to configure WSS (as I already had WSS on my machine). If you do have WSS installed it can configure for you as part of the install.

First Hiccup  - At this stage, I went to Sharepoint Config (v3) and had some strange errors like "the website declined to show this webpage". This appeared to be due to some security settings in Sharepoint and IIS, as well some Sharepoint sites that were not created properly. After removing some of these bad Sharepoint Websites and checking the security I was able to create a new WSS v3 site. I needed this for the TFS install (I need to tell TFS which WSS v3 to use to host documents, reports etc)

Second Hiccup - Continued to install TFS and then got some errors on Reporting Services. Aborted the installation. Similar error to above when browsing the RS Website. Also got an error about " No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it".

2pm. Off to a meeting

3:20pm - back from a meeting

After messing with some of Reporting Services config I was able to get past these RS errors. This was frustrating.

Reporting Services appears to be working. Also went in and deleted reports etc from previous Orcas TFS install.

3:35pm Started TFS Install again. Third minor hiccup. Had an issue due to previous aborted installation. Removed the databases from SQL Management Studio, removed the TFS Website from IIS and removed the TFS directories from Program Files.

3:45pm Ran again, Only complaint from the check was my machine speed - but I could continue.

3:50pm TFS is installed (will need to create a project later to make sure)

 

3:54 TFS Build installed

Installed WSS Extensions (was not sure if I needed this). The note mentioned something about needing it if you configured WSS manually.

3:56 WSS Extensions installed. Did not seem to need it - I think?

3:57 Install Team Explorer - took some time to "extract files".

4:35pm Team Explorer installed (that was long). Checked with some internal guys and this is a known issue in Beta 2. Will be resolved in RTM apparently.

4:37pm - ASP.NET Futures July Ed, Silverlight 1.1 Alpha and Tools for VS Installed. Nice quick installs.

4:41 Run VS08 - does it "configuring environment for first use" thing

4:43. Creating TFS08 Team Project.

4:45 Success.

I am sure I will find some other bits to install in the next few days.

 

In summary - The VS uninstall/install was smooth. VSTS had some issues due to issues with WSS and Reporting Services. I did not check WSS/RS before I started, so I have no idea if there were issues before. My personal view is that that these issues were present before I started. In the last month I have been using this machine for some other stuff and have messed around with IIS settings (security, app pools etc) and could have had an effect. But I guess I will not know for sure.

I still need to test all the different project types etc. If I hit an issue I will blog it.

Posted: Aug 02 2007, 08:35 AM by ahmeds | with 1 comment(s)
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Brian Harry coming to TechED Africa

I was waiting to blog on this, but noticed today that Brian blogged about it - so I guess it is fine for me too. For those that do not know, Brian is a distinguished engineer at Microsoft. He is also, in my words, the chief architect of Team Foundation Server (TFS).

Visit his blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry

Brian Keller will also be coming down.

We are in discussions with Ron Jacobs as well, and maybe even Scott Hanselman (although this is more of a long shot at this stage)

Posted: Aug 01 2007, 02:17 PM by ahmeds | with no comments
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VSTS Web Access available for download

Awhile ago, Microsoft acquired TeamPlain. TeamPlain provided a web based view of TFS including work items and source control. If you know TFS it is more or less the web equivalent of Team Explorer. Earlier this week, we made available an updated version of this tool. For more information check out the Team System Web Access Page.

Brian Harry's blog post is also very useful.

You can download it from here. I have just downloaded it (3.2MB) and installed. It took less than 10 minutes in total.

Posted: Aug 01 2007, 07:49 AM by ahmeds | with no comments
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Today is upgrade to VS08 Beta2 day

On a machine that had Beta 1 and I have no intention to reformat. It should be interesting. At the same time I will get rid of TFS Beta 1 as well Silverlight, and install the latest bits of these too.