Application Lifecycle Management

New Year, New Moments, New Award - Microsoft MVP for Visual Studio ALM

2013-01-03T12:00:49Z

First of all Happy New Year to all Mkdot.NET members and best wishes !!

Second: I have got a pretty nice present for the first day of this year – email from support@mvpaward.com with “Congratulations 2013 Microsoft MVP!” subject.

Dear Vlatko Ivanovski,
Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2013 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in Visual Studio ALM technical communities during the past year.

It’s my pleasure to be recognized as exceptional Microsoft professional, and also my duty to maintain this award !!!

Cheers !!

Starting IntelliTrace PowerShell Scripts – ERROR: …execution of scripts is disabled on this system…

2012-12-11T10:57:36Z

I’ve situation to start Standalone IntelliTrace Collector in a production for gathering traces from custom made Dynamics CRM Plugins.

After setting permissions to Log folder I’ve launched PowerShell and “StartIntelliTraceScript.ps1” script.
(These files are from Brian Keller’s VM)

And I’ve got an error:
StartIntelliTraceScript.ps1 cannot be loaded because the execution of scripts is disabled on this system. Please see “get-help about signing” for more details.

The solution is to type following line and everything will fine right after that.

Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

(More Help about Using the Set-ExecutionPolicy Cmdlet)

NOTE: Change the policy back to original restricted policy if you want to restrict future execution of the PowerShell scripts.

ALM Rangers Solutions

2012-08-15T22:12:34Z

As a Recently honored with Associate ALM Rangers Membership I’m proud to announce that you can find the latest list of all ALM Ranger solutions here and a list of all ALM Ranger projects on CodePlex here .
For an overview of the ALM Rangers Readiness wave and to hear from some of the product owners and project leads, watch the 3min RC awareness video and presentation .

Whole announcement: Welcome to Visual Studio 2012 ALM Rangers Readiness “Wave”.

Cheers !!!

Feedback Browser

2012-06-17T23:16:21Z

New CodePlex project started: TFS Feedback Request Browser

http://feedbackbrowser.codeplex.com/

Cheers !!!

IntelliTrace Collection Plan Configurator

2012-05-25T13:02:34Z

2 weeks ago I had a presentation at TechDay 2012 with title “What is new for VS11 for ALM” , and at the end of a presentation someone from the audience asked me a question about Intellitrace: “Is there an easier way of configuring the XML file that describes the plan?”.

Therefore previous week in my spare time, I did a thin client tool that serves to configure IntelliTrace Collection Plan.

It is still in Alpha version, but will soon be made the following functionalities, such as configuring of:

Log File Name
Log File Directory
Collecting events only or events function calls
Add / Edit / Remove Module and Process Lists

This project is hosted on CodePlex as IntelliTrace Collection Plan Configurator and is open for suggestions and participation for making it better.

Cheers

Team Foundation Server / TFSPreview – Make Suggestion to make it better !!!

2012-05-09T23:59:39Z

Few months ago, after starting using TFSPreview I’ve noticed that there is link “Make Suggestion” at Welcome Page.

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=225082

After clicking it you can see a thousands of ideas and suggestions provided for all Visual Studio family of products.

From time to time I’m visiting this page (already posted 3 ideas – one is under review – it means that is serious candidate to get implemented in the next release) and I look around to see the “hot” ones.

And always at the top of the list was:

“Add some color to Visual Studio 11 Beta” with more than 7 thousands votes.

Yesterday there was announcement http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2012/05/08/visual-studio-11-user-interface-updates-coming-in-rc.aspx that Visual Studio 11 UI updates are coming in RC version. It means that this suggestion and others that are under review are considered during making new version of Visual Studio.

Therefore, if you mess with TFS 11 or TFS Preview, and you have some ideas to improve it, don’t keep to yourself - suggest it, maybe it will become “hot” idea, and Microsoft will seriously consider in next release.

BTW here are links to my suggestions:

Show all "My" unanswered feedback requests after starting Feedback Client

There should be specific subjects and detail explanations in e-mails triggered by alerts

Ability to change project template – Under Review

Installing and configuring Team Foundation Server 11 Express (Beta)

2012-05-08T08:33:02Z

If your dev team is up to 5 persons, if you don’t need TFS proxy, sprint/backlog planning or feedback management, no Sharepoint integration, no reporting and the new Preemptive analytics, but you like to use:

Source Code Control
Work Item Tracking
Build Automation
Agile Taskboard

for FREE of charge, then you can install and use TFS 11 – Express edition (Beta).

Here I’ll explain step by step installation and configuration of TFS 11 Express (beta) edition.

All of these steps are performed on my laptop machine OS – Win 7 64bit, 4 GB RAM

1. Download it from: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/11/en-us/downloads#tfs-express. There are two options for installation: using web installer or downloading dvd5 iso image file

2. Before running installation you should have in mind and check your configuration according System Requirements:

3. After installation you should configure TFS Service before starting using. After installation this wizard is automatically shown. If it is new fresh installation of TFS you should chose New Server

4. After wizard has been started first thing you need to configure is account the TFS components (Web Service + Web Application) will work under.

5. By default Is Network service and port 8080, but you can change it by clicking Change link. For now I’ll leave default settings

6. If you don’t have installed SQL Express on your machine it will install the latest one and use it, but if you have as in my case, there are few problems that probably Microsoft will solve them till release version. If you have older version of SQL Express (2008 in my case) it recommends to install SP 2 or greater. After doing it it shows me error again. After that I have installed SQL Express 2008 with SP3 and the problem persisted. As I have seen in log if it finds SQL Express edition with SQLEXPRESS instance name it doesn’t checks other instances. At the end I have uninstalled default SQL Express and have installed SQL Express 12.

7. Finally it Readiness Checks shows that everything is ok, and configuration can start.

8. First of all is configured database (Tfs_Configuration), then creating web sites, configuring web services, and at the end creating default project collection (Tfs_DefaultCollection database).

9. And that’s it !!! You can start using TFS 11 Express

10. Have in mind that Firewall exception for port 8080 is added, and at the final screen you can see the web address where you can access for administering TFS.

11 ..or you can use TFS Express Administration Console to perform administrative tasks.

12. Another part of configuration I’ll show is configuring Build Controllers and Agents

13. After starting Wizard, there is few parts to configure

14. Fist of all is choosing collection that this build machine will serve. By default is chosen defaultcollection but if you have more of them you can choose another.

15. Next is number of build agents defined (up to 5). In this case I’ll chose default 1 agent

Note: Even 1 build agent is recommended for .TFS 11 Express (because of max 5 users), I think that if you have Build Definition triggered by Geted Check-in you should revise the number, because if you have frequent check-ins one agent can not serve all your needs for all max 5 users.

16. Choose appropriate built-in or custom Build Service Account (Default is Network Service)

17. Review configuration before apply it

18. And that’s it, you have now configured the same machine as build machine, and..

19. .. you can start defining build definitions according your needs

20. Just to mention that after configuring you can completely remove build configurations, change build service account, delete/disable agents etc.

At the end I can say that not only is TFS Express free but it also provides teams access to Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) which is a huge benefit.

Enjoy and have a nice day !!

TFS Services Preview Video: Project Alerts Management

2012-04-06T10:14:00Z

In this post by video presentation I’ll show you how to manage TFSPreview Alerts.

>>Click here if you want to watch it in full screen mode !! <<

Only, I do not like the format of the email message sent by notification manager.

For that purpose I’ve proposed suggestion: http://bit.ly/HUbJtz and I hope they will fix it really soon.

Cheers !!

Running “Visual Studio 11 Application Lifecycle Management Virtual Machine” on Windows 7 using VirtualBox

2012-03-02T23:42:06Z

Before 2 days there was announcement that new virtual machine is ready (thanks to Brian Keller).

Visual Studio 11 Application Lifecycle Management Virtual Machine and Hands-on-Labs / Demo Scripts

After downloading, I’ve played a little bit with mounting this VM on my Win 7 machine and after few hours I’ve found the way:

Oracle VirtualBox was the most suitable for this situation. Here are the steps for doing it.

1. Create new virtual machine. Start new wizard

2. Write the name of the machine , and choose Microsoft Windows as OS and Windows 2008 (64 bit) version

3. Adjust memory for this machine. Recommended amount is 2GB.

4. Use existing hard disk. Select it form location after unzipping 15 RAR files included in initial download

5. Review your configuration and click Create

6. Here is initial creation of the machine.

7. If you try to run the machine you will receive this wonderfully colored picture as shown below (Blue screen of death ):

8. The trick is: Open settings

9. Navigate to Storage and remove both IDE and SATA controller

10. Add IDE controller, and after that add existing Hard Disk (chose the one you have downloaded)

11. Run the machine, and you will see that it works as a charm !!!

Hope this will help someone !!!

Cheers

TFSPreview – Cloud Application Lifecycle Management

2012-01-21T01:19:52Z

After playing previous two months with TFS 11 and TFSPreview using shared invitation code, yesterday I’ve received invitation code to create my host for Team Foundation Service Preview.

It means that you can have your own space for testing and exploring new capabilities of the new Azure TFS.

I am playing all day with all new features and possibilities and I can say that it is AWSOME !!!

Shortly:

- You can easy create project,

- add source to source control,

- add members to project,

- connecting from various clients

- connecting and registering build controllers

- manage project using new template using “Microsoft Visual Studio Scrum 2.0 - Preview 3” template and finally

- using scrum dashboard (TODO, IN PROGRESS, DONE) for tracking and maintaining project…

without ANY installation of TFS Server at your own hardware.

Of course, if you want to use it after final release, you should pay for using it . . . and for now, as I know there isn’t defined costs for this cloud service yet.

Useful links:

Software Downloads for the Team Foundation Service Preview

Team Foundation Service Preview – Beginner’s Guide

Visual Studio ALM + Team Foundation Server Blog

VIDEO: Team Foundation Service Preview: Introduction

P.S. If someone needs invitation code for creating own host at tfspreview.com I have 3 codes left, so feel free to contact me, and I’ll send it to you…

Great resources for Team Foundation Server 11 and Application Lifecycle Management

2011-12-02T15:07:11Z

If you didn’t know, together with Windows 8 and Visual Studio .NET 11 Developer Preview, Team Foundation Server 11 Developer Preview was also announced.

According to this, there are many resources that I have found that describes all new ALM & TFS 11 features and its usage:

1. INSTALLATION

2. VIRTUAL MACHINE – HOL

Visual Studio 11 Application Lifecycle Management Virtual Machine and Hands-on-Labs / Demo Scripts

3. NEW FEATURES EXPLANATION

4. VIDEOS

Team Foundation Server 2010 – Extend Build Definition (publish after successful build)

2011-06-27T13:48:00Z

INTRODUCTION

With Team Foundation Build, you can create build definitions to automate compiling applications, running associated tests, performing code analysis, releasing continuous builds, and publishing build reports.

To build an application, you create a build definition to specify what projects to build, what triggers a build to run, what automated tests to run, and where to deploy the output.

Here is some schema explanation:

Well in short these are the steps for managing builds:

Define a build. Create a build definition with instructions about which code projects to compile, what action should trigger the build, what tests to run, and many other configurations. You can even use legacy MSBuild files by using the upgrade template.
Creating and Working with Build Definitions

Queue a build. Manually start any defined build, and monitor the progress of builds.
Running and Monitoring Builds

View results. View information about builds, rate the quality of a build, or delete completed builds.

MY REQUEST / CHALLENGE / PROBLEM

When you define Build, in a Process > Build process template (click Show details first), by default is set Default Template. It means that DefaultTemplate.xaml file has been chosen from the list. Other ones are “Upgrade Template” and “Lab Default Template” (as is shown on a picture).

My request was actually to extend build definition with a simple execution of a post-build script/batch that will (in my sample) publish website and reset IIS.

SOLUTION

One of the solutions about this problem lies in extending build definition with custom activity.

The process controlling the end - to - end build process in Team Foundation Server is described in a Windows Workflow 4.0 XAML file. The build process templates are created as part of the project creation process, and are defined in the process template.

To create a new build process template, start by editing the build definition. In the Process section of the dialog, click the New button toward the top of the screen. This brings up the New Build Process Template dialog.

In the dialog, select “Copy an existing XAML file” and point it at DefaultTeamplate.xaml .

You must save your build definition to make it use the new build process template from now on. You then perform a Get Latest on the build process template in Source Control Explorer, so that you can open the file for editing inside Visual Studio.

After opening new build definition XAML file, the action begins:

1. Open Global Arguments tab for opened XAML file and insert new argument “SolutionName”. This is argument of type System.String and is used for managing path for publishing project (described bellow)

2. From the Control Flow section of the Toolbox, drag a new “ If ” activity to the end of your sequence.

For Condition write: BuildDetail.CompilationStatus = BuildPhaseStatus.Succeeded

3. In “THEN” section drag and drop new “Sequence” and name it: Publish Web Application

4. Double click on Sequence and drag and drop new InvokeProcess element from the toolbar

Here we are doing “the magic”: Click on File Name at properties of Invoke Process activity and write this (here I am using SolutionName Argument specified during Build Definition Creating):

String.Format("{0}\publish.bat", System.IO.Path.Combine(BinariesDirectory, "_PublishedWebsites\” & SolutionName & ”\"))

What this means is that we want to invoke a process, actually the file publish.bat that is placed at the root of the project but is located at _PublishedWebsites, folder under the BinariesDirectory – variable of the workflow sequence.

5. Define Working Directory of InvokeProcess activity to: System.IO.Path.Combine(BinariesDirectory, "_PublishedWebsites\” & SolutionName& ”\") - location from which the process should be invoked.

NOTE: You should have in mind (do not forget) 3 things to put this in operation:

- You MUST check-in new XAML Build Definition file after every change (save is not enough because all operations are performed on the server)

- You MUST create publish.bat placed in the of root project, change its “Build Action” to Content and define actions, and

- Because Build agent has been configured to run under Network Service account, you should grand Modify permission to this account on folder where you are copying new files (in my case it is “C:\inetpub\wwwroot\WebSites\test”)

My publish.bat file has very simple definition as:

xcopy /E /Y *.* C:\inetpub\wwwroot\WEBSITES\test\*.*

iisreset /restart

It actually copies all files and folders for current location (defined previously in WorkingDirectory) to specific location where my site is hosted. And at least it performed IIS reset operation.

6. Next step is defining new build. The only difference from “native” defining of build is choosing new build definition file and assigning “SolutionName” argument value as it is shown on the picture:

7. Queue new build

8. View the results

CONCLUSION

This is only a simple example how you can extend your build definition and also define your own custom actions executed every time as build succeed. You can invoke EXE files, Power Shell Scripts to publish your site to remote locations using Web Publishing, FTP etc.

I’ll use this extension to schedule nightly builds for every project i manage, and every morning to watch at new up-to-date applications hosted on a staging server.

Hope you will find this helpful !!!

New Book about Team Foundation Server 2010 RELEASED !!!

2011-03-27T23:54:07Z

The title is: Professional Team Foundation Server 2010

Great team as authors: Martin Woodward, Grant Holliday, and Brian Keller (also Mickey Gousset and Steve St. Jean as technical editors)

Last their book was really great: Professional Application Lifecycle Management with Visual Studio 2010

Just to mention that this book helps certification candidates prepare for the Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010 certification exam (Exam 70-512).

Have a nice reading ;)

Delete (orphaned) branch relation using Visual Studio .NET / TFS 2010

2010-09-10T13:41:03Z

I have wrote yesterday about deleting orphaned branch directly from DB. But thanks to Martin Kulov and Buck Hodges the solution of this problem can be performed using Visual Studio .NET 2010.

Here is the problem:

According to the Basic Branching Plan (http://tfsbranchingguideiii.codeplex.com/) sometimes you need to delete a branch.

But what happens.. in Branch Hierarchy View a branch still exists and makes a confusion to you and your colleagues.

In the next image is situation when you have made branch from DEV to MAIN instead the opposite way. Well the steps I’ve performed was:

Create Dev Branch
Create Branch From DEV to MAIN
OOOOOOOPS… making a mistake !!!!!
rename DEV branch to DEV_2
making new branches from MAIN (DEV and PRODUCTION)
Delete DEV_2 branch.

But the situation was as is shown here (DEV_2 branch still exists):

Here is the solution:

Go to Tools > Options > Source Control > Visual Studio Team Foundation Server > Show deleted items in the Source Control Explorer
Refresh items in Source Control Explorer, You will see the deleted branch DEV_2
Right Click on deleted branch and make Undelete, that returns your branch from deleted items
And finally the hint: select the branch and go to: File > Source Control > Branching and merging > CONVERT TO FOLDER (why it does not exist in context menu of branch I don’t know ?!?!)

5. Make Check In, and the relation to orphaned branch is disappeared. After that you can delete whole folder if you want etc…etc..

See you real soon !!

Latek

Delete (orphaned) branch forever – Team Foundation Server 2010 – Unsupported Version

2010-09-09T14:06:49Z

UPDATE: Bellow is UNSOPORTED solution. There is SUPPORTED solution too (Thanx to Buck Hodges for suggestion). This post will expire in 2 days.
It is not recommended to mess up with TFS database, or if you do so, please make backup before “playing the game”.

According to the Basic Branching Plan (http://tfsbranchingguideiii.codeplex.com/) sometimes you need to delete a branch.

But what happens.. in Branch Hierarchy View a branch still exists and makes a confusion to you and your colleagues.

In the next image is situation when you have made branch from DEV to MAIN instead the opposite way. Well the steps I’ve performed was:

Create Dev Branch
Create Branch From DEV to MAIN
OOOOOOOPS… making a mistake !!!!!
rename DEV branch to DEV_2
making new branches from MAIN (DEV and PRODUCTION)
Delete DEV_2 branch.

But the situation was as is shown here (DEV_2 branch still exists):

I have researched a little bit more deeply a Database storing of all these information. The strange was that in the Source Control Explorer There was no Dev_2 branch i.e. it was shown only in Branch Hierarchical View ?!?!
(This setting is by default, you can change it: Tools > Options > Source Control > Visual Studio Team Foundation Server > Show deleted items in the Source Control Explorer)

If you make query over your collection database (every collection has its own database ex: Tfs_DefaultCollection, Tfs_DevCollection etc..etc…) over the tbl_Branch table you will see that there is DEV_2 (DEV>2) branch and its foreign key with parent branch.

SELECT [ParentPath]
      ,[ChildItem]
      ,[Description]
      ,[DateCreated]
      ,[OwnerId]
      ,[BranchParent]
      ,[BranchItemId]
FROM [Tfs_ProjectCollection].[dbo].[tbl_Branch]
Order by ParentPath

ParentPath	ChildItem	Description	DateCrea	BranchParent	BranchItemId
$\ProjectName\	MAIN\	NULL	10.08.2010 08:38	0x00000000	29095
$\ProjectName\	DEV\	Branched from $/ProjectName/MAIN	10.08.2010 08:38	0x00000000000071A7	29107
$\ProjectName\	PRODUCTION\	Branched from $/ProjectName/MAIN	10.08.2010 08:39	0x00000000000071A7	29379
$\ProjectName\	DEV>2\	NULL	09.09.2010 10:53	0x00000000	116414

Well the question was: What makes difference from hierarchical to source control explorer?

I have performed tracing (SQL Server Profiler) on listing branches of projects under Source Control Explorer, and the answer was that it makes calling to this stored procedure:

exec @ownerId='A9EBFE15-C4C4-46A0-9381-2BE3AA1CB61F',@workspaceName=N'LATEK',@serverItem=N'$\PROJECTNAME\',@depth=1,@itemType=NULL,@deleted=0,@options=12

and after execution the result was set of branches for specific project (including DEV_2 but the difference was in one columnt: DeletionID which was 91 (>0) only to DEV_2 record.

SourceServerItem	TargetServerItem	ItemId	Encoding	DeletionId	VersionL
$\ProjectName\	$\ProjectName\	28830	-3	0	34
$\ProjectName\DEV\	$\ProjectName\DEV\	29107	-3	0	38
$\ProjectName\DEVDel\	$\ProjectName\DEV_2\	116142	-3	91	NULL
$\ProjectName\MAIN\	$\ProjectName\MAIN\	29095	-3	0	37
$\ProjectName\PRODUCTION\	$\ProjectName\PRODUCTION\	29379	-3	0	39

Well, now the question was: How to know does some branch has or not DeltionID. The answer i have found was in previously executed stored procedure prc_QueryItemsExtended. This stored procedure is using table [tbl_Version] to see does some ItemId (which is BranchItemID from tbl_Branch) has DeletionID larger than 0 (zero).

So the query you should perform paraphrased in command is: Delete all records from table tbl_Branch where BranchItemID exists in table tbl_Version and the column DeletionID is grater than zero.

And finally T-SQL:

USE Tfs_COLLECTION_NAME

DELETE FROM tbl_Branch
WHERE   tbl_Branch.BranchItemId IN ( SELECT ItemId
                                     FROM   tbl_Version
                                     WHERE DeletionId > 0 )

After executing a command the situation at the hierarchical view is:

That’s all…see you real soon :)

Regards

Latek