TFS

TFS Source Control Explorer Stops Responding

Scott Lock — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 14:15:09 GMT

Sometime in the last few days the Source Control Explorer in VS 2005 stopped responding. I would click on in under the expanded TFS Project and nothing. After some research I found that it may either be related to the computer browser service or to a corrupted VS 2005 user settings file.

It turned out to be the later. A post from Shannon Braun pointed me in the right direction. So after using the command line option to reset VS 2005:

"%programfiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe" /resetuserdata

I was able to reset my environment and correct the problem. Only problem is I have no idea how many "tweaks" I've made along that way that I will have lost!

Team System Web Access Released (TeamPlain v2.0 based)

Scott Lock — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 16:49:00 GMT

Microsoft released Microsoft Visual Studio Team System Web Access yesterday as a Power Tool. The model is the same as the TeamPlain release, free to licensed TFS users. It's supported, but not an official product.

Have fun!

Team Foundation Server - What the heck does "reportable" actually mean for a custom field?

Scott Lock — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 04:29:13 GMT

I've been working on a custom process template for a client in TFS and came across some things that I didn't know. Now I am not an Analysis services guy so this was a little new to me. It took me forever to find decent definitions on how to correctly set "reportable" in TFS.

The docs on this, how to use it, and what it should be set to, etc can be a bit tricky to find. It wasn't until I picked up Professional Team Foundation System that I got a clear answer. After a little bit of tinkering and some quick pivot tables in Excel, I became an OLAP master. Now that is a total fabrication and basically a tall tale. I do highly recommend this book to those using TFS.

The TFS SDK documenation has a decent description on what the settings can be and what they mean.

Adding non-project files to TFS Source Control

Scott Lock — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 17:38:32 GMT

I've been working heavily on creating a custom Process Template for XP development in TFS and came across a very basic task: Add the process template source to source control. After hours and hours of tweaking, editing, and debuing the core process templates I would hate to lose them. Not to mention the process itself its an iterative process therefore should be versioned and managed by some control system.

Well, of course it is not quite as obvious as it seems. In VSS it was pretty simple to add "non-project" files. In TFS anything that is not Visual Studio 2005 is considered "non-project". Here are the step:

1. Open Source Control Explorer - Also not quite as obvious as it should be - View...Other Windows...Source Control Explorer

2. Select a project from the TFS Server - You have to have a workspace in order to add files to the project.

3. Add files - Again, not quite obvious - File...Source Control...Add Files.

Documentation says that if you don't have a workspace cofigured you won't see the add files option. How can you create a workspace if you don't have source control project folder? Say I want to add "TFS Process Templates" as a source control folder add it to a workspace. Doesn't seem quite obvious to me yet...stay tuned.