VSTS

Visual Studio 2010 RC installation on multiple machines

Stan Spotts — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 03:19:56 GMT

So I downloaded the ISO from MSDN Subscriber downloads two days ago and installed it on three different computers. The first one is a Dell laptop that's running Windows 2008 R2 and had VS 2010 Beta 2 on it. I first uninstalled beta 2, which took a while and caused some wierd error with my network driver. At least, it was the only thing that I was running on the laptop, and it was after the uninstall made me reboot that I lost the driver.

I did a repair on the driver and got my network connection back, so I loaded the ISO using MagicISO Virtual CD/DVD Manager. I've used Daemon Tools in the past, but found this and really like it. I started a custom install and unchecked SQL Express as I already have SQL 2008 Developer installed on the box.

It ran along and after another reboot, finished fine. At the final screen of the install wizard, I elected to configure help and set my preference for local, and installed it all. I opened Visual Studio and checked it out, and am really pleased with the speed improvements. I added some of the available extensions as well, and I like the way that works. Eclipse has had an easy way to add extensions that wasn't in Visual Studio, so it's nice to see.

Okay, so I also have a Dell workstation running Windows 7 32-bit. It would run 64-bit except I have some peripherals that don't have 64-bit drivers. Again, I uninstalled beta 2, and this time had no network driver issues. Actually, I had no issues at all, the entire install ran cleanly. Sweet!

If I had hair, I would have lost it after my third installation. I thought this would be easiest - it's on the Acer laptop that I got from attending the PDC 2009 event, and is running Windows 7 64-bit. It's not a great box for development, regardless of the fact that Microsoft gave these to us so we would write multi-touch apps, since it only has a Celeron 1.4Mhz processor and a pretty small 11.3" screen, but I read that one of the improvements in the VS 2010 RC was better performance with sub-2MHz processors.

Again using MagicISO I started the install. Horrible. Half the bits didn't install, and the IDE was flaky starting up. So I uninstalled and tried again. More stuff didn't install again, but it was different. Another uninstall, and I also looked for leftover files and registry entries. So another install... isn't it a sign of insanity when you do the same thing multiple times and expect it to be different? Yet another bad install.

So I uninstalled again, and this time I copied the contents of the ISO onto the same external USB hard drive where the ISO is stored. Now I ran the install from disk, and it all installed just fine - extept the last page, which tells you how the install worked and lets you set up help, told me it couldn't be displayed. At least now the tools installed fine. I added a bunch of cool extensions and things are running fine. Now I just have to figure out how to get that help installed locally :).

I'll be playing with this machine a bit to see just how well it runs on slower processors.

Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals RTM on MSDN now

Stan Spotts — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 17:50:00 GMT

As promised on the MSDN site, VSTD is now available for subscribers to download! I saw that Visual Studio Team Suite wasn't updated with VSTD, so I wonder if it'll stay as only a standalone install...?

Microsoft's Team Foundation Server and VSTS are great, but not quite enough (yet)

Stan Spotts — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:14:00 GMT

I love VSTS 2005 and the .NET Framework 2.0, and there's much in TFS that just makes the development process easier than ever. However, we're using the Rational suite of tools for our SDLC because in our SDLC, the VSTS/TFS combination is just not enough. The development cycle doesn't start with the project plan and task level complete and go right into coding - requirements and use case modeling fit in there.

Traceability. This word pops up in almost every vision and design meeting I've been a part of. TFS does a great job with traceability between work items and source code, and enforcement at check-in time is something that just doesn't come out of the box in Clear Case. There's no traceability with requirements because there's no requirements management in TFS, which hurts. Sure, you can extend the process profiles and define a requirement type and use-case model type, but how do you manage them? How do the business analysts (who don't use VSTS) work with them? I've seen demos/prototypes for use-case modeling using the DSL toolkit, which makes a lot of sense - but it's not out of the box and requires the IDE. If Microsoft had an install of the IDE with a requirement management front end, and a use-case designer, I'd have a powerful case for using the entire toolset.

Believe me, I understand the partner strategy that Microsoft has. It's great that there's so much opportunity for VSIP partners to sell great tools that integrate into VSTS, and hopefully, Team Foundation Server. However, I've seen Borland's CaliburRM tool, and there's nothing there that shouts “no brainer” to pick it over RequisitePro. There should be some basic requirements management tools and use-case tools shipped with TFS, with the partner opp to create something much more advanced.

I'm hoping that Microsoft does a few more things to make it easier for those of us who really want VSTS/TFS to get it into our dev houses.

Another thing I'd like to see is more of a provider model in TFS. For instance, if I've got Clear Case as the enterprise SCC, it would be nice if I could just plug it in where TFSC would normally be and have check-in rules apply. I haven't yet thought about the “how” part, but if we're using a 3rd party functional testing tool in place, it would be great if the results of the tests were stored in TFS's data warehouse to take advantage of the great reporting capabilities in TFS. This isn't all a Microsoft issue, of course - Microsoft needs to expose the functionality, and tools vendors need to take advantage of it.

I'm hoping that in TFS V.future, I'll be able to make a tremendously strong argument for making TFS the core of the SDLC, like BizTalk Server could be the core of an SOA or a business process with multiple disparate back-end apps.

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Disclaimer: The views herein are my own and are not necessarily the views of Computer Aid, Inc.