VSTS
VSTS
Microsoft released a guidance document for branching and merging using Team Foundation Server. This extensive guide explains about various branching and merging patterns and how to implement those patterns using TFS. It also has information on how branching/merging is implemented in Microsoft product teams. Check out the following community page for more details,
http://www.codeplex.com/BranchingGuidance/Wiki/View.aspx?title=html&referringTitle=Home
I also came across a tool “Team Foundation Side Kicks” which is really useful for merging. Though most of the features provided by this tool are available through TFS command line utilities, this tool UI is very good. Check it out at following site,
http://www.attrice.info/cm/tfs/index.htm
It also has so many additional features other than merging.
When you access Source Control Explorer in VS.NET 2005 Beta2, sometimes you might the following error.
Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.
You might be wondering why this error occurs and it wont occur always. This error comes only when you try to open Source Control Explorer without connecting to TFS. To avoid this problem, always activate team explorer window (internally it will connect to TFS) and then access Source Control Explorer.
Actually, Source Control Explorer should automatically connect to TFS when we open Source Control Explorer. Probably in the beta3 (which is supposed to be released along with VS.NET 2005 RTM) it might work that way.
Internally VSTS Class Diagrams(*.cd) are stored as xml file. Its format is changed in Beta2 from Beta1. So if any of you have created class diagram with previous release and if you face any problem while opening the class diagram in beta2. Then run use this utility to convert your class diagram to beta2 format.
I have few class diagrams for my current project, it opened in beta2 without any issues. Probably my class diagrams didnt use the feature that requires changes..
As you all know, Team Foundation Server (TFS) Beta 2 is also available with VS.NET 2005 Beta2. However, you cant install TFS Beta2 until SQL Server April CTP is released. Rob Caron has mentioned about this in his blog .
Good news about beta2 is, you can install data tier and application tier of TFS in one machine. You can download the installation guide for TFS beta2 from here. Rob, mentioned in his blog that this installation guide supersedes the installation guide that comes along with beta2 dvd/cd.
Update: SQL Server April CTP is also released. Now you can install TFS with SQL Server April CTP...
If you are a MSDN Subscriber, you can download it from here. However, before installing beta2, you need to uninstall all pre-beta products of VS.NET 2005. It needs to be removed in certain sequence, for more details refer this link.
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/uninstall/
If you dont follow this uninstalling instructions, you might get into lots of problems in installing beta2.
If you are not a MSDN subscriber, then either you can order for beta2 or you can download express versions of VS.NET 2005
Go-live license for VS.NET 2005 is available for beta2, if you planning to deploy beta2 products in production environment, then sign up for go-live,
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/golive/
Note: Go-live license is not available for TFS Foundation server.
For more details about beta2 release, refer these links
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/get/
http://blogs.msdn.com/danielfe/archive/2005/04/17/409073.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/bgold/archive/2005/04/17/409045.aspx
Sad part for me is, I have installed pre-release beta2 in my machine last week only... i have to uninstall it and install beta2 again... I will post about my experience in installing beta2 soon..
Visual Studio Team System tool set automates the process guidance and collection of metrics across a software life cycle thus eliminating the need for process enforcement and getting rid of manual tasks associated with a process.By default VSTS comes with two process template,
If this process doesnt suit your organization, you can customize this process template or create your own process template according to VSTS standards. To know more about how to customize Process Template, check out this Team foundation blogs
VSTS doesnt come up any GUI to customize process template, but Osellus is coming up with a tool "IRIS Process Author" to visualize the Process template editing. If you are planning to customize the process template for your organization need, then you need to look out for this tool.....
Much awaited Visual Studio Team System Pricing is announced today...
Microsoft Details Pricing and Licensing for Visual Studio 2005 and Simplifies Microsoft Developer Network Subscriptions
Summary
Microsoft Corp. today detailed pricing and licensing terms for Visual Studio® 2005, its comprehensive application development tool set, as well as simplification of its Microsoft® Developer Network (MSDN®) subscriptions, the primary vehicle through which most developers obtain Visual Studio. Microsoft will reduce the estimated retail price of Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition while offering special pricing to existing MSDN subscribers for Visual Studio 2005 Team System, the expansion of the Visual Studio product line to include integrated software life-cycle tools. In addition, current Visual Studio users will be eligible for promotional pricing to acquire MSDN subscriptions now, in preparation for Visual Studio 2005, expected in the second half of calendar year 2005. This will enable more developers to take advantage of the productivity, security enhancements and improved deployment capabilities of the .NET Framework..
New subscription and renewal estimated retail pricing for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Professional and Standard editions follow:
- Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition: $799 (upgrade: $549)
- Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the Microsoft Office System: $799 (upgrade: $549)
- Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition: $299 (upgrade: $199)
- Visual Studio 2005 Express editions will be $49.
Microsoft will offer an MSDN subscription with Visual Studio Professional Edition products to afford small businesses the same subscription benefits as large enterprises:
- Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition with MSDN Premium subscription: $2,499 (renewal: $1,999)
- Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition with MSDN Professional subscription: $1,199 (renewal: $799)
- MSDN Operating Systems subscription: $699 (renewal: $499)
- MSDN Library subscription: $199 (renewal: $99)
Update on 22/3/05:
Frequently asked question regarding VSTS Pricing and MSDN Subscription.
Last week I installed Foundation Server Dec CTP, it went very smoothly when compared to its previous release. During installation I got only one error that too because of memory problems. I tried to install foundation server in my desktop with around 400mb memory for app tier and data tier, I got few timeout errors like this;
Event Description: Initialization for plugin "Microsoft.Pcw.Rosetta" failed with error: "Failed to retrieve projects from the report server"
Exception Type: Microsoft.VisualStudio.TeamSystem.ELead.ProjectCreationNew.RosettaInitializationException
Exception Message: Failed to retrieve projects from the report server
InnerException:
Exception Type: System.Net.WebException
Exception Message: The operation has timed-out.
WebException: Status : Timeout
Then I guessed this might be due to memory problems, and then I moved my virtual machines to server where I could allocate 1 GB memory for both data tier and app tier. It installed very smoothly.
You should take care of following things while re-installing foundation server in same machine after any error
1. Uninstall Adam Instance
2. Restart app tier after Adam uninstall
3. Uninstall Data tier and restart Data Tier. [Uninstall of Data tier works perfectly]
Though foundation server installation went through smoothly, I got following errors when I tried to create portfolio project.
1. Currituck failed error during portfolio project creation like this,
Initialization for plugin "Microsoft.Pcw.currituck" failed with error
"Access Denied: Not a system user"
This is a known bug in this release. Reason and Solution for this problem is explained in my another blog,
2. SccTask failed error during portfolio project creation like this,
Task "Scc.SccTask" failed
System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException
The added or subtracted value results in an unrepresentable DateTime
This is also a known bug. Workaround for this problem is explained in Team system blog.
When you create portfolio project in Team System Foundation Server, you might get the following error
Event Description: Initialization for plugin "Microsoft.Pcw.currituck" failed with error: "Access Denied: Not a system user"
Exception Type: Microsoft.VisualStudio.Currituck.Client.NotASystemUserException
Exception Message: Access Denied: Not a system user
This is a known issue in DEC CTP and it is mentioned in Foundation Server Team Blog. This error will come if you have user principal name different from email address of the user in active directory. This error has come in Beta 1 refresh also, I have blogged about it here..
I also faced this problem when i installed Foundation Server Dec CTP. I solved this problem using following workaround. User information for team system is stored in ADObjects table in Currituck database. So if you update this table to have email address alias name to be same as user principal name. This problem will be solved. To do this, run the following script in currituck database in foundation database server.
Update ADObjects set mailnickname = SamAccountName where Domainname like '<YourDomainName>'
GO
ALTER TRIGGER [dbo].[NewTrigger_1] ON [dbo].[ADObjects] WITH EXECUTE AS CALLER AFTER INSERT, UPDATE AS
Update ADObjects set mailnickname = SamAccountName where Domainname like '<YourDomainName>'
Note: Since ADObjects table is synched with Active directory by a Currituck service, this table values will keep changing. therefore you need to create trigger to update this table when there is a change in this table.
Latest team foundation installation guide (1.0.41222) for Visual Studio 2005 Team System December CTP release can be downloaded from this place,
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=E54BF6FF-026B-43A4-ADE4-A690388F310E&displaylang=en
After I installed foundation server successfully, I tried creating portfolio project in VSTS. Portfolio project was created successfully, but with the following error.
unexpected error.:SyncWithAD_Lookup was unable to get a domain for <domainname>\<username>
SyncBisTree: ChangerId is NULL
Due to this error I couldn’t create any workitem in that project. I thought this error is due to some wrong configuration of domain user name in foundation server. For more than two days I tried various options like changing identity for foundation server, for IIS, and running foundation server in administrator account and many more… but I couldn’t solve the problem…
Then instead of trying all this options, I opened the project creation code of VSTS using .NET Reflector. Thanks to Lutz Roeder. I traced the problem with the help of stack trace of the exception. I was surprised to see that problem is not in the application tier of foundation server, it’s in data tier. I started the SQL Profiler, and again I created the portfolio project to trace the exact SP in which I am getting this error. Finally I found out this error is coming in SyncWithAD_Lookup SP in pssshared database. Luckily this SP is not encrypted. So I could get the text of Stored Procedure.
In that SP, they are trying to check the domain details of the logged on user. But the assumption in that SP is that, email nick name (saravanak in saravanak@abc.com) and logged in user name should be same. I just commented the code that verifies this assumption, I could create portfolio project without this error. But I got Security exception error. This error was also coming because of same reason, but I couldn’t read the SP which is raising this error as it is encrypted. Then I opened the Table “ADObjects” which is storing details about user account. I updated that table so that mailnickname and logged on user name to same value. After that I could create portfolio project without any error.
I don’t know why VSTS team is assuming mailnickname and login name should be same or did I missed anything during foundation server installation. I am not thinking too much on that, as I am able to play with VSTS now without any problems.
1. Read and follow each and every step mentioned in Microsoft Visual Studio® 2005 Team Foundation Server Installation Guide. This guide is available in Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1 Refresh DVD in the following location
<DVDDrive> \docs\default.htm
Following are the pre-requisite for installing foundation server. Details about each pre-requisite are explained in the Installation Guide.
· The prerequisites for the database tier computer:
a. Install Windows Server 2003 Enterprise or Standard Edition.
b. Install Internet Information Services.
c. Install SQL Server 2005 Beta 2.
· The prerequisites for the application tier computer:
a. Install Windows Server 2003 Enterprise or Standard Edition.
b. Create a user account for the Team Foundation Server application pool identity.
c. Install Internet Information Services and enable ASP.NET.
d. Install Windows SharePoint Services.
e. Install Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM).
f. Install .NET Framework 2.0 Beta
- Don’t have Database tier and Application tier in same machine. Due to incompatibilities between the builds of .NET 2.0 used by Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Beta 2 and this particular CTP release of Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation, these products must be installed on separate computers. For more details refer this link, http://blogs.msdn.com/askburton/archive/2004/09/01/224397.aspx
- You can have Database server and Application server in Virtual Machines. VSTS Foundation Server will work in Virtual Machines. But this is not support by Microsoft. For more details refer this link,
http://blogs.msdn.com/askburton/archive/2004/09/01/224474.aspx
- Don’t Install Visual Studio foundation server on top of VS.NET 2005 Beta1. For more details refer this link, http://blogs.msdn.com/askburton/archive/2004/09/01/224392.aspx
If you face any problems in uninstalling VS.NET 2005 Beta 1 in your application tier, then refer this link.
http://samgentile.com/blog/archive/2004/09/03/12187.aspx
- Don’t run Application tier and Database tier under Local Machine Administrator account. Before you start the foundation server installation, verify both database tier and Application tier runs under domain account which is the administrator of both the machines.
- If the installation fails and you want to install it again in the same setup. You need to remove the databases added by previous installation setup and delete the VSTS folder (c:\VSTS) created by setup in database tier. Though the installation rollbacks after any problem, it won’t clean up the database tier. Database added during Foundation Server Installation are BISDB, BISDWDB, CurrituckDB, ELEadDB, pssshared, VSSTeamSCC and VSSTEAMSCCAdmin.
- If Installation rollbacks, it will give you the error number and description. Sometimes you might not get any error message, but the setup will rollback. To find out exactly what is the error, you need to check the log file of VSTS Installation. The log file is created in the following location,
C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Temp\dtEntServer***.txt
- If you get any one of the following error message during installation,
Then check out this link for solution.
http://blogs.msdn.com/askburton/archive/2004/09/03/225386.aspx
- For Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System Readme, verify this link
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/teamsystem/readme.aspx
- After installation to configure Visual Studio to use Team Foundation Server functionality, you must connect to a Team Foundation Server
Note: At a minimum, Visual Studio users should be a member
of the Power Users local security group.
To connect to a Team Foundation Server
· On the Tools menu in VS.NET 2005 Beta 1 Refresh, click Connect to Team Foundation Server. The Team Foundation Server dialog box appears.
Note: Connect to Team Foundation Server menu option is there only in VS.NET
2005 Beta 1 refresh and not VS.NET 2005 Beta1
· Click Add. The Add Team Foundation Server dialog box appears.
· In the TFS Name box, type the name of the application tier server hosting Team Foundation Server.
· In the TFS URL box, type the following URL (replacing ServerName with the name of the application tier server hosting Team Foundation Server):
http://ServerName:8080/BIS/registration.asmx
· Click OK to return to the Team Foundation Server dialog box.