Platinum Bay

Using a Single Strong Name Key across Multiple Projects

Steve — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:51:13 GMT

When strongly naming project, the Visual Studio default behavior is to copy the source key file into each and every individual project. This might not be ideal in all cases as you may want to be able to change strong name keys across all the projects at a future time.

Fortunately, there is a workaround using the linked files trick.

First, create your *.snk file in the solution directory. If the project is under source control, be sure to add the *.snk file as a solution file to the solution node in Visual Studio. You can do this by right-clicking on the solution node in the Solution Explorer tool window, choosing "Add Existing Item…" and selecting the *.snk file.

Then, in each project you wish to sign, right-click on the project node and choose Add > "Existing Item…" Browse to and select your *.snk file, but here's the twist. Instead of just clicking Add, use the dropdown arrow on the right side of the Add button and select Add as Link. This adds a reference to the original file location without copying it locally. At compile time, linked files are treated as local (to the project) files.

Finally, right-click on the project and choose Properties. Navigate to the Signing tab, check the "Sign the assembly" checkbox, and from the dropdown list, select the fully-qualified name (FQN) that is displayed. Then type Ctrl+Shift+S (Save All) to save. The important thing to remember here is that even though the FQN was displayed in the dropdown, a relative path is stored in the *.*proj file.

If you would like to validate that the relative path is stored, you can right-click on the project node, choose "Unload Project", right-click again, and choose Edit… In the first PropertyGroup, there is a node named AssemblyOriginatorKeyFile. You will see it is set to a relative path.

Hope this helps

I’m a Team System MVP

Steve — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:41:00 GMT

Last week (yes, I've been quite busy), I received an email from Microsoft announcing that I had been selected to be a Microsoft MVP for Team System. w00t! I am super excited as this is certainly a product and a product team I am very passionate about. My hope is that by receiving the MVP award I can do more of what I've been doing, because as a lot of you know I am somewhat of a community junkie <grin>

Thank you Dani

First and foremost I have to thank Dani Diaz, my Microsoft Developer Evangelist, who was instrumental in helping me focus my energy, providing mentoring, and in supporting my community efforts. He also nominated me for the award.

Thank you others

There are plenty of others who have helped me get here (and I'm sure I'll miss some): all the user group leaders who let me speak at their events, the Philly .NET User Group, Jason Gaylord, Don Demsak, Grant Holliday, Kevin Goff, Chris Love, and John Baird.

How?

The most common question I get now is how does someone go about getting the MVP award. There are a few points I'd like to make on this topic. First, the MVP award is given "to thank individuals for their exceptional contributions to technical communities". In essence, it has to be earned through community participation. This includes stuff like helping out in the newsgroups, speaking, and writing. Second, there are no hard and fast criteria to build an MVP plan off of.

What's Next?

I certainly have no plans to slow down. I'd like to maintain pace of about 3 presentations a month, as well as to start speaking at larger conferences. I am also talking to an online publisher about having a weekly column loosely focused on Team System and ALM. Who knows, maybe even a book is in order?

But for now, who needs an MVP speaker to talk about Team System and ALM?

P.S. - Congrats to all the other MVPs awarded this round, especially John Baird!

DevSource Article: DevEnv Command Line Switches

Steve — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:41:49 GMT

My second article has been published on DevSource.com. This one inspired by a phone call with a developer experiencing problems with add-ins in their development environment. It seems a lot of developers aren't aware of the command line options with Visual Studio, and I thought I'd cover the topic.

From the abstract: "Visual Studio includes several command-line switches that you can use to have more control over how VS operates."

http://www.devsource.com/c/a/Add-Ons/Visual-Studio-Command-Line-Switches/

DevSource Article: Automation with MSBuild

Steve — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:58:49 GMT

I am very excited to announce that last Thursday my first article was published on DevSource.com. While it has taken a bit of time away from blogging, I had a blast doing it. From the abstract: "The MSBuild utility is a powerful replacement to older make-style programs. You use it every day, whether you realize it or not. Why not make the most of it?"

My second article, detailing the command line switches for Visual Studio, is currently under review and will hopefully be published later this week.

You can check out the first article here, and I'd love to get some feedback on mi numero uno:

http://www.devsource.com/c/a/Add-Ons/Automation-with-MSBuild/

Team System Link Love - 9

Steve — Sat, 03 May 2008 18:31:17 GMT

Just checked the reports in FeedDemon, and I think it's only fair that if you haven't blogged in over a year, you're coming off my list.

MSBuild Studio

Steve — Fri, 02 May 2008 05:31:36 GMT

Did you know that .csproj and .vbproj files are really MSBuild files? More than build processes though, MSBuild is a full-featured automation language. It includes structured control flow, variables, refactorability, error handling, logging, and powerful extensibility. MSBuild can easily be integrated into your own enterprise processes and start adding value right away. Team Foundation Build further extends on MSBuild and adds robust integration with Team Foundation Server.

Working with MSBuild and Team Build project files, however, has been a manual process in a text editor. Even with IntelliSense and color coding in Visual Studio, it can be somewhat cumbersome to work with.

To help alleviate these issues, I have created a new project on CodePlex titled MSBuild Studio. My goal for MSBuild Studio is to create a managed package add-in for Visual Studio that contains graphical designers for working with MSBuild project files. Similar to the Windows Workflow Foundation designer, the MSBuild Studio designer will feature a drag-and-drop interface integrated seamlessly into Visual Studio and the toolbox, properties tool window, and more.

If this project sounds interesting to you, contact me to get involved. Specifically, I am looking for folks with experience in creating VSPackages and in using the IDesigner interface.

Visual Studio: Search Hidden Text

Steve — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:24:00 GMT

An attendee in my Visual Studio 2008 Tips and Treats session this weekend in Richmond, Virginia brought a new tip to my attention. I've often seen the 'Search Hidden Text' checkbox in the Quick Find dialog (Ctrl+F), but I never paid much attention to it. I remember playing with it once, but it didn't seem to do anything, and I just ignored it.

What I learned is that by default, the Quick Find dialog does not search text in collapsed regions. Only by enabling this checkbox will you be able to search text in collapsed regions. I never noticed the difference because I personally don't like regions, and told Visual Studio to ignore them.

In case you're wondering, to turn off regions:

VB: Tools | Options | Text Editor | Basic | VB Specific > 'Enable outlining mode'

CS: Tools | Options | Text Editor | C# | Advanced > 'Enter outlining mode when files open' and 'Surround generated code with #region'

Unfortunately, I didn't get the name of the individual, but thanks! Now I know, and know you know too!

Team System Link Love - 8

Steve — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 06:22:40 GMT

MVP Summit

MVP Summit 2008, Seattle Day +1 on Grant Holliday's blog
MVP Summit 2008, Seattle Day +2 on Grant Holliday's blog
MVP Global Summit - Day 3 on Willy-Peter Schaub's blog
MVP Global Summit - Day 4 on Willy-Peter Schaub's blog

Events

SA Architect Event: TR What's new in Rosario (Overview Only) on Willy-Peter Schaub's blog
Phoenix: Awesome Upcoming SDLC/VSTS Event on Steve Lange's blog

Dogfooding

How DevDiv uses TFS on Jeff Beehler's blog
How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 3 (Addendum) on the Teams WIT Tools blog
How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 4 on the Teams WIT Tools blog
Installing a TFS Production Server - Meeting Notes on David Starr's blog

Tools

Teamprise 3.0 has shipped on Brian Harry's blog
OpenMake Meister support for Team Foundation Server on Brian Harry's blog
Team System Web Access 2008 SP1 and Work Item Web Access 2008 CTP's Available on Maor David's blog

Updates

A new home for Visual Studio Hotfixes on Brian Harry's blog

Rosario

Rosario Preview #1 - Exciting Enhancements of The Version Control on Maor David's blog
Rosario Preview #2 - Team Build on Maor David's blog

Upgrading

TFS 2005 to 2008 upgrade: TFS Friendly name revisited on Etienne Tremblay's blog
TFS 2005 to 2008 upgrade: SharePoint v3 security changes (what you need in order to manage TFS without being a windows administrator revisited) on Etienne Tremblay's blog
Team Build: Recursive copy of BuildType folder? not in TFS 2008 on the SRL Team blog

Tips

New empty folders problem in solution explorer on the SRL Team blog
Solution not refreshed with new project on the SRL Team blog
Team Foundation Server - Why can all valid users see all Team Projects? on Willy-Peter Schaub's blog
invoke-wiq.ps1 - "run" a .wiq file and get the results back on James Manning's blog
Requirements & Team System on Brian Harry's blog

Share the Vision

Steve — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:22:00 GMT

I guess you could say I've taken the red pill, and probably some kool-aid too, and I'm going down the rabbit hole as we speak. No, I haven't taken a job at Microsoft; I quite love my job at RDA. Rather, I've just 'branded' my laptop in order to help evangelize the vision of the Team System platform. It is pretty slick, and should look good during presentations.

I'm always on the lookout for VSTS branded swag, like apparel, stickers, and knick-knacks. I like them both for myself, and I try to find stuff to give out during my presentations to promote interaction with the attendees. If you run across any VSTS swag, let me know.

My Blogroll

Steve — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 03:15:00 GMT

A couple of folks have asked recently what blogs I read. It turns out that I currently read 179 blogs, but I hadn't updated the blogroll on my site since it was a manually intensive process. I figured someday I'd get around to automating it.

Well, I have finally completed the transition to a new blogroll for my blog. In the process, I ditched the Outlook 2007 RSS reader for FeedDemon and NewsGator. I was then able to use the NewsGator OPML feed, and create a custom page to display the blogroll.

Now I can view and manage my feeds in FeedDemon, and the changes are reflected almost instantly on the new blogroll page. Cool!

You can see it here.

ALSO, I do in fact read every one of the blogs listed. If I don't read yours, should I?

Philly .Net Code Camp 2008.2 Call for Speakers

Steve — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:11:03 GMT

In case you haven't seen the announcement, the call for speakers for our Code Camp is now open. Here's the official text:

Philly.net is planning the second of three Code Camp events in 2008. They will be spaced four months apart with the next event on May 17 at DeVry University in Fort Washington, PA. The last Code Camp had 385 attendees with room to spare. We are looking for speakers to fill 40 sessions. You are encouraged to submit one or two talks on any .NET related topic (this includes SQL, SharePoint, BizTalk and other servers). There will be 8 concurrent tracks with 5 eighty minute talks. Here is a tentative schedule:

registration
8:30-9:50
10:00-11:20
lunch
12:30-1:50
2:00-3:20
3:30-4:50
Prizes
5:30-7:30 speaker party

If you would like to speak on May 17, please contact Steve Andrews or Bill Wolff with a session title, topic description, and bio. We will add these to the website and the email announcement that goes out to 3,500+. If you prefer a specific session time, let us know. We will try and accommodate as the schedule permits.

Since there are only 40 sessions, we would like to limit each speaker to one really good talk. We have events planned every four months so you can do different talks at each Code Camp to keep things interesting. We would also like to see one novice/beginners level session in each track. Here are the tracks and track leaders (let me know if you can't manage your track this round, also send a list of speakers/sessions already confirmed):

Tools (includes VS, languages)
MIX (web, smart client, silverlight, wpf)
Framework (wcf, wf, linq)
Alt.net
Architecture
SharePoint/OBA
SQL Admin
SQL Dev/BI

Remember, this is a CODE CAMP. You don't need polished slides, just some interesting code or applications that developers might enjoy and learn from!

Team System Link Love #7

Steve — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 02:47:14 GMT

Team System Dogfooding

April '08 DevDiv TFS Dogfood Statistics on Brian Harry's blog
Can your version control system hold 236 million files? on Jason Barile's blog
How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 3 (Implementing the Process) on Gregg Boer's blog

Events

Heroes Happen Here Launch Event in Second Life -- April 26^th on Angela B's blog
Denver: Awesome Upcoming SLDC/VSTS Event on Steve Lange's blog
QVSTSUG April Meeting - Friday 18th April on Anthony's blog
SA Architect Event: TFS 2008 Deep Dive Bootcamp (4Days) on Willy-Peter Schaub's blog

MVP Summit – Team System

MVP Summit 2008, Seattle Day 0 on Grant Holliday's blog
MVP Global Summit - Day 1 on Willy-Peter Schaub's blog
MVP Global Summit - Day 2 on Willy-Peter Schaub's blog
Will Twitter for Microsoft MVPs on Sara Ford's blog

Rosario

A new look at progress on "Rosario" - April 2008 CTP on Anthony Borton's blog
April 2008 CTP Available for Visual Studio Team System "Rosario" on Ed Blankenship's blog
TFS Rosario - Source Control Explorer improvements on Grant Holliday's blog
TFS Rosario - Team Build uses Windows Workflow on Grant Holliday's blog

Tools

Code Project Browser Add-in Updated to Support VS 2008 on Travis Laborde's Clipmarks
PowerCommands for VS 2008 v1.1 Released on Travis Laborde's Clipmarks
Ekobit TeamCompanion on Jason Barile's blog
Team Foundation Sidekicks 2.1 Release on Mario Rodriguez's blog

Learning

LogiGear blogging classic software testing advice on Jason Barile's blog

Integration

Msscci 2008 with MS Access 2007 on Michal Malecki's blog

Team System General

Updates to Team System Web Access on Brian Harry's blog
A couple of notes about installing TFS on Windows Server 2008 on dscruggs' blog
Migrating hotfixes to MSDN Code Gallery on Jeff Beehler's blog
Move your project's source code using the team source control "Move" command on Eran Ruso's blog
Work Item Web Access Power Tool - CTP Available on Anthony's blog

Team System Link Love #6

Steve — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:36:36 GMT

Tips

Disabling Continuous Integration for a single check-in on Angela B's blog
More "How Do I…?" Videos Have Been Released for VSTS! on Angela B's blog
Rich text in work items on the Teams WIT Tools blog

Tools

Team System Web Access 2008 SP1 CTP and Work Item Web Access 2008 CTP are now available on Buck Hodges' blog
TFS Team Project Permissions Relief on David Starr's blog
What is Work Item Web Access (WIWA)? On Hakan Eskici's blog
New Outlook Integrator for Team Foundation Server: TX Looker on Steve Lange's blog

Events

MSDN Usergroup Queensland "A Case Study: Using TFS to support long-running development projects" on Charles Sterling's blog
- I wish I could be there <g>
Team Foundation Server 2008 (level 300 deep-dive) boot camp - (South-Africa, Johannesburg) on Willy-Peter Schaub's blog

Project Management

Better Project Management with Team Foundation Server on Brian Keller's blog

VSX

Debugging Visual Studio packages (stories from the crypt) on Eugene Z's blog

Process

Carl Rogers, Process Development Architecture: TFS Adoption within EMEA – A Process Perspective on dscruggs' blog
.NET Enterprise Solutions …. Best Practices for the Connoisseur Book available for download on Willy-Peter Schaub's blog

Database

Database Change Management System using Team System 2008 on Angela B's blog

Boston Code Camp Wrap Up

Steve — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 02:09:00 GMT

What a weekend: 52 hours, 732 miles, 3 presentations, and one great time! Yes, despite the distance, I'm glad I was finally able to make it up to the Mother of all Code Camps, and I met some fantastic people there. I was able to sit in on one session John Baird presented, and having never heard him speak before, I was supremely impressed with the quality of his presentation. He is a fantastic presenter. I also had some time to sit around in the speaker room, where I was able to listen in on some really neat conversations.

I personally presented three sessions, and as promised, the takeaway information is below:

Visual Studio 2008 Tips and Treats

The, ahem, draft eBook, and the bonus material can be downloaded here. One of these days I will get around to updating it <g>.

Writing Better Software with Visual Studio 2008 Team Edition for Software Developers

While there are no downloads, you can see the initial diagrams I presented on the FXCop blog here.

Automation with MSBuild 3.5 and Team Build 2008

You can download the sample code here.

Enjoy!

From the Forums: Disappearing Dialog Boxes and Windows

Steve — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 01:55:31 GMT

From time to time, folks seem to have issues with dialog boxes or tool windows disappearing. Most often, they are somehow off-screen and therefore unusable. For some dialog windows, the Visual Studio title bar turns gray, indicating the tool window does in fact have focus, it just can't be seen.

There are a couple steps you can follow to get your dialogs and windows back. First, if you don't mind rebuilding your window layouts, you can instantiate the dialog or tool window, and choose Windows | Reset Window Layout. This has worked for a number of people.

If you don't want to have to deal with resetting tool windows and the like, these steps are for you:

For a Tool Window:

Invoke the Find window (Ctrl+F or Ctrl+Shift+F)
Click Alt+Minus
Click the DownArrow
Click Enter
Use the arrow keys to move it back into view (it might take a little guesswork, but try hitting each direction arrow once first which might help re-orient it with the screen.

For a Dialog Box:

Hit Alt+Space to invoke the window menu.
Hit M for the Move command.
You should see the cursor change to a move icon and be at the edge of the screen closest to the (hidden) window.
Use the arrow keys to bring it back.

Do these tips work for you? If you've found another way to bring dialogs and windows back, let me know.

Microsoft Publishes VSTS SOX Guidance

Steve — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 01:38:05 GMT

About two months ago I started a series on Sarbanes-Oxley compliance with Team Foundation Server. After publishing Part 2, I learned that Microsoft was in the process of putting together their own take on the subject, and I thought I would hold off until the release.

That paper has now been released. You can get it here.

All in all, I feel there are several SOX 404 issues that are not discussed or discussed only briefly which are relevant to a regulated organization. One of these topics is separation of duties. However, I further realize that I was approaching Sarbanes-Oxley compliance from a very narrow perspective.

I used to work for a financial services software company. In that environment, every line of code that went into the software was governed by Sarbanes-Oxley (and others), and therefore had to comply with all aspects of SOX. This is not the more general approach taken by the Microsoft paper.

But overall I feel Microsoft did a good job putting it together. What do you think? Did it cover all your issues?

Team System Link Love #5

Steve — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 01:23:48 GMT

Admin

Cliff's Notes for a Team System Install on Jeff Atwood's blog

Media

Radio TFS 04: Visual Studio Team System 2008 Development Edition on the TFS Radio web site
Even MORE WebCasts on Visual Studio Team System 2008 on Angela B's blog

Process

Sarbanes-Oxley 404 and Visual Studio Team System 2008 on MSDN
Stephanie Saad on the new Process Site on MSDN
Multiply your team's voltage by working in parallel on Richard Hundhausen's blog

Reporting

TFS Performance Heat Map Reporting Services Report on Grant Holliday's blog

Tools

Team Foundation Sidekicks v2.1 Released on Eugene Zakhareyev's blog

General

Update from the farm on Brian Harry's blog

MSF for CMMI Process Template v4.0 to v4.2 Differences

Steve — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 11:12:00 GMT

A number of folks on the forums have asked about what changed between Team Foundation Server 2005 and Team Foundation Server 2008, specifically in regard to process templates. I recommended that folks use a diff tool (I use BeyondCompare), but I thought I should get around to doing it myself and sharing the results.

In this post, I'll outline the differences between the MSF for CMMI process template between versions 4.0 and 4.2 in relation to the process template folder structure.

Root

The name element value on line 4 of ProcessTemplate.xml has changed:

MSF for CMMI Process Improvement - v4.0

MSF for CMMI Process Inprovement - v4.2

Classification

No changes (whitespace differences).

Groups and Permissions

No changes (whitespace differences).

Reports

Two reports were removed:

Load Test Comparison.rdl
Load Tests.rdl

Two reports were added:

Exit Criteria.rdl
Issues List.rdl

Twenty-Three reports have changed; there were substantial changes made to both the queries and layouts of most reports.

Actual Quality vs Planned Velocity.rdl
Bug Rates.rdl
Bugs by Priority.rdl
Bugs Found Without Corresponding Tests.rdl
Issues and Blocked Work items.rdl
Load Test Detail.rdl
Load Test Summary.rdl
Project Velocity.rdl
Quality Indicators.rdl
Reactivations.rdl
Regressions.rdl
Related Work Items.rdl
Remaining Work.rdl
ReportsTasks.xml
Requirement Details.rdl
Requirements Test History and Overview.rdl
Tests Failing without Active Bugs.rdl
Tests Passing with Active Bugs.rdl
Triage.rdl
Unplanned Work.rdl
Work Item with Tasks.rdl
Work Item with TestResults.rdl
Work Items.rdl

Version Control

VersionControl.xml - new child element added to the taskXml node:

<get_latest_on_checkout required="false" />

Windows SharePoint Services

There are far too many changes to list in this post related to the SharePoint project portal documents. If you have made project portal customizations, you may want to do a diff yourself to get the changes.

WorkItem Tracking

workitems.xml

Negligible change to the completionMessage attribute value on line 7:

WorkItemTypes created

Work item types created

Negligible change to the completionMessage attribute on line 25:

WorkItems uploaded

Work items uploaded

A hyperlink change was made to the Create Vision Statement task on line 75:

WriteVisionStatement.htm

WriteVisionDocument.htm

WorkItem Tracking – Queries

AllTasks.wiq – The where statement changed in the Wiql element to include

AND [System.State] = 'Active'

MyWorkItems.wiq – The where statement changed in the Wiql element to include:

AND [System.State] <> 'Closed'

WorkItem Tracking – TypeDefinitions

All seven work item definitions were changed. The <ValidUser/> node was removed from the transition field nodes, and added to the field definition nodes.

Tech-Ed with the Blogfather

Steve — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:40:00 GMT

[Updated: 4/3/2008]

It seems Chuck isn't able to make the ALM track keynote, so I guess there's only one thing left to say:

Um, yeah! Like Microsoft was going to have little ole' me speaking at their great big event?! Even with my enthusiasm and zeal. APRIL FOOLS! *cricket* Yes, I know. It's a genetic thing. My dad used to take me to the zoo and tell jokes. The laughing hyenas would start crying.

For the record, the MVP email is fake as well; I received no such email. It was designed to lend credibility to the Tech-Ed portion.

I must say though, Chuck was an awesome sport to go along with this, kudos my friend! I owe you MANY beers!

Original Post:

So I woke up this morning to a congratulations email from Microsoft saying they have awarded me MVP Visual Developer – Team System! Sweet! But then I realized what today is and checked the raw email header, and found that it didn't come from Microsoft. No. Apparently someone, who shall remain nameless, decided it would be a funny joke on this first of April. Boo.

But the next email was WAY better. I got an email from Charles Sterling on the Team System product team at Microsoft inviting me to co-keynote the ALM track with him at this year's Tech·Ed Developer Conference. Being a little jaded from the first one, I checked, and it was in fact from Charles Sterling at Microsoft! I think my wife had to peel me off the ceiling in my office with a fork! For those who don't know him, Chuck is the new Team System Blogfather at Microsoft, having returned to Redmond after 5 years as a DE in Australia. More details to follow as we hash them out, but seriously, Charles and I should be delivering quite a presentation, so mark your calendar for June 3^rd through 6^th! Oh, and check Chuck's blog for his post with more details.

Anyway, I could ramble on forever; certainly a very rollercoaster day so far!!

MSF for Agile Process Template v4.0 to v4.2 Differences

Steve — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:37:55 GMT

In this post, I'll outline the differences between the MSF for Agile process template between versions 4.0 and 4.2 in relation to the process template folder structure.

Root

The name element value on line 4 of ProcessTemplate.xml has changed:

MSF for Agile Software Development - v4.0

MSF for Agile Software Development - v4.2

Classification

No changes (whitespace differences).

Groups and Permissions

No changes (whitespace differences).

Reports

Two reports were removed:

Load Test Comparison.rdl
Load Tests.rdl

Two reports were added:

Exit Criteria.rdl
Issues List.rdl

Twenty-One reports have changed; there were substantial changes made to both the queries and layouts of most reports.

Actual Quality vs Planned Velocity.rdl
Bug Rates.rdl
Bugs by Priority.rdl
Bugs Found Without Corresponding Tests.rdl
Builds.rdl
Load Test Detail.rdl
Load Test Summary.rdl
Project Velocity.rdl
Quality Indicators.rdl
Reactivations.rdl
Regressions.rdl
Related Work Items.rdl
Remaining Work.rdl
ReportsTasks.xml
Scenario Details.rdl
Tests Failing without Active Bugs.rdl
Tests Passing with Active Bugs.rdl
Unplanned Work.rdl
Work Item with Tasks.rdl
Work Item with TestResults.rdl
Work Items.rdl

Version Control

VersionControl.xml - new child element added to the taskXml node:

<get_latest_on_checkout required="false" />

Windows SharePoint Services

WorkItem Tracking

workitems.xml – Negligable change to the completionMessage attribute value on line 7:

WorkItemTypes created

Work item types created

WorkItem Tracking – Queries

AllWorkItems.wiq – The where statement changed in the Wiql element to include

AND [System.State] <> 'Closed'

MyWorkItems.wiq – The where statement changed in the Wiql element to include:

AND [System.State] <> 'Closed'

WorkItem Tracking – TypeDefinitions

No changes.

Quadriplegic Programming

Steve — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:29:27 GMT

I have often wondered how folks with Quadriplegia, which is paralysis of all four limbs, might pursue a career in software development. I mean, software development is super-tightly-coupled to a keyboard and a mouse. To this end, I have long thought about what sort of devices could be used to overcome such a disability.

My basic idea has always been to use eye tracking to substitute for the mouse, and voice recognition to substitute for the keyboard. Unfortunately, I have not seen any really great and inexpensive products out there to provide these services, until now.

Andy Schwam recently posted about some YouTube videos by Johnny Lee in which he takes a Wii remote and thinks outside the box, and it got me thinking. One of Johnny's videos used reflective tape and an IR array to do finger tracking, and I realized the same effect could be used to track eyes, so here's my idea.

First, an IR emitter array would be mounted above the computer monitor. Next, special contact lenses would be fitted which reflect light relative to the colored portion of the eye, and block IR light to the pupil to prevent eye damage. Third, a special baseball cap would be put on which contains an IR camera on the brim facing the user's face.

The first step to using the system would be an eight-part calibration using four or five points, one for each eye, similar to the Windows Mobile screen alignment (left).

The concept is to use 1-second winks to perform mouse button clicks. Winking the left eye would be the left-click; and the same for the right, with blinking being ignored. To drag, simply sight the cursor to the object, close the left eye for more than one second to select the object, and move the right-eye to the target, opening the left eye to release the object.

The next, and slightly more complex step, is voice recognition, and this doesn't involve the Wii remote at all. There are many voice recognition systems on the market today, but the concept I believe is still in its infancy, and would be difficult to adapt to keyboard-less systems. I'd like to propose my method of speech recognition.

Speech recognition would be handled in two modes: keyboard and transcriber. Keyboard mode would allow the user to simply speak a button on the keyboard, such as tab, space, percent and ampersand. Transcriber mode would allow for direct, dictation-type data entry. A visual toolbar would be visible and docked on the screen allowing the individual to switch data entry modes. The toolbar would also provide shortcuts and user-customizable system macros to perform common tasks.

I believe these two methods provide the most convenient and simplest method of vocal data entry. Here are some examples:

Navigate to 'C:\Temp' in the command prompt:

[Visually open the command prompt]
[Keyboard mode]
C
D
Space
C
Colon
Backslash
Enter
C
D
Space
T
Tab (to correct item)
Enter

Navigate to Microsoft.com in a web browser:

[Visually open the web browser]
[Visually select the address bar]
[Transcriber mode]
Microsoft
[Keyboard mode]
Control
And – note the '&' symbol would be spoken as 'ampersand'. 'And' is used for multi-key input.
Enter

The third method of data entry would be an onscreen keyboard, usable with the eye tracking system.

So that's my idea. I'd love to see if a prototype could be put together, so if anyone is interested in playing with this, give me a shout.

From the Forums: Code Analysis and Custom Path Policies

Steve — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:25:12 GMT

A couple users have reported issues with using the Custom Path policy with the Code Analysis policy. The Custom Path policy is part of the Team Foundation Power Tools, and can you can get the bits for free from the Microsoft Web site.

The Custom Path policy allows you to scope a check-in policy to specific source control paths and file types. Unfortunately, it appears that the Custom Path policy doesn't play nicely with the Code Analysis policy. I was able to reproduce this by adding a Code Analysis check-in policy, and then creating a Custom Path policy to scope it. The result is that the Code Analysis policy doesn't run at all. For any path, though it works successfully as a standalone policy.

I opened up a bug on the Microsoft Connect portal, so for those that may experience this issue I recommend you go and validate the bug, and provide any additional feedback you may have.

CMAP Code Camp – Spring 2008

Steve — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Just a little plug for Chris down at CMAP: their spring Code Camp is coming up in April.

Registration is now open. Space is limited for this FREE event, so register soon. Click here to register.

Central Maryland Association of .NET Professionals (CMAP) will holding its Code Camp 2008 Spring Edition on April 12, 2008. The Code Camp will be held at the Loyola College Graduate Center in Columbia, MD from 9am - 5pm.

Great source of information for FREE, with a FREE lunch, and chances to win great giveaway items, what a great way to spend a Saturday...

Remember space is limited for this FREE event, so register soon. Click here to register.

And now back to our regularly unscheduled program

Steve — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:00:15 GMT

So, my birthday post seems to have been a hit: so far over 1,500 views and 93 comments. It was so popular it seems that my database hit its storage limit and the site started acting goofy. A couple table truncations and a db shrink seem to have done the trick for now. Sorry for any problems folks encountered. Off we go again…

Team System Link Love: 4

Steve — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:32:00 GMT

Events

Visual Studio Team System Chat: April 9 on Charles Sterling's blog

Resources

Team System Community Wiki on CodePlex

Source Control

Custom Check-In Policies on the Microsoft Web site
How Do I: Use the Builds Check-in Policy on Buck Hodges' blog

Tools

MSBuild project analysis tool: BuildCop on Buck Hodges' blog
Teamprise 3.0 Ships! On Martin Woodward's blog

General

Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 Setup Log Files on Aaron Stebner's blog
Interview with Mark Osborne on how we build Visual Studio on Jeff Beehler's blog
Better Project Management with Team Foundation Server on Charles Sterling's blog
Requirements Management Whitepaper on the Microsoft Web site
Brian Harry updates us about life on the farm

Happy Visual Studio Birthday

Steve — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 04:00:00 GMT

On November 10, 1775, an act of the Continental Congress declared "That two Battalions of Marines be raised…". Today they are known as the Marine Corps, and every November 10^th the Marine Corps celebrates their Marine birthday with a reading from the Marine Corps manual, a birthday message from the Commandant, and other festivities as well as greetings and good wishes among Marines.

Most Visual Studio developers have not fought on the enemy's battlefield with bullets and blood. For those that have in the 232 years of the Marine Corps, I offer my deepest respect and sincerest appreciation.

On March 19, 1997, Visual Studio 97 was released to the public and thus began a new era of software development. In like manner to the Marines, on this March 19^th I would like to wish all of my fellow Visual Studio developers a happy 11^th Visual Studio birthday.

Further, I suggest a Visual Studio birthday tradition. First, Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the .NET Developer Platform at Microsoft, should deliver a birthday message. Second, we should each read the Visual Studio 97 mission to help remind us of our legacy and what our ambition should be:

In looking to build high-quality tools, Microsoft listened to customers, each clamoring for tighter integration across the myriad of utilities, tools, servers, and platform features they required. Visual Studio 97 enabled development teams to share in large-scale projects across the entire development life cycle, even when mixing components of various languages and using various deployment architectures such as the Internet, Microsoft Windows, and, increasingly, mobile devices.

Happy Birthday!

[Updated: 3/20/2008]

I made a note in the comments, but I wanted to make sure I clarified my post. I am in no way making any sort of comparison between Microsoft and Visual Studio, and the United States Marine Corps. I am also not in any way trying to suggest that software developers do anything nearly as courageous or selfless as that of the US Marine Corps. I am simply trying to make reference to the camaraderie of the Marines, and how we might introduce some of their 'community spirit' into our own software development community.

Visual Studio: Easily Edit Project Files

Steve — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 04:16:32 GMT

In case you aren't aware, project files like .CSPROJ and .VBPROJ are really MSBuild project files, and as such, you can edit them to perform additional tasks, include targets, and more. I have often found myself editing them in Notepad because I believed it was the easiest way. As of today I am using Notepad no more, at least for editing project files.

This is because you can work with project files directly in Visual Studio without closing your project, and with full IntelliSense and syntax highlighting. Simply right-click the project node in the Solution Explorer tool window and select Unload Project. Then right-click on the project file again, and select Edit [Project Name]. You can now edit the project file with full Visual Studio editor window support.

When you are done editing the project file, right-click on the project node and choose the Reload Project command.

Simple, eh?

Team Foundation – Diagnosing Common Connection Problems

Steve — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 22:13:33 GMT

There are quite a number of questions on the forums related to connection issues with Team Foundation. Not that Team Foundation inherently has connection problems, I've never had any, but that it may not have been installed or configured it correctly or the environment could have changed. In this post I'll take a look at some of the common connection issues and make suggestions for the diagnosis and correction of these issues.

This list is by no means conclusive, so please send me your suggestions and comments.

Connectivity issues can cause the following errors:

TF31002: Unable to connect to this Team Foundation Server
TF31002: Unable to connect to TFS 2008
TF30207: Error when creating a project

Ports

If you have a firewall or system protection software running on your local machine or on the network between you and TFS, that software may block ports needed by Team Foundation or Team Explorer. The default ports are as follows:

Team Foundation Server	8080
Team System Web Access	8090
Team Foundation Server Proxy	8081
SQL Server Reporting Services	80
SharePoint	80
SharePoint Central Administration	17012

Changing these default ports may lead to connectivity loss with team Foundation, so changes should be made cautiously.

Note also that SharePoint, which contains the team project portals, runs on port 80 by default. If you try and set Team System Web Access to run on port 80 without using a host header, SharePoint will no longer be accessible, and you may receive the 'red X' in the document libraries folders Team Explorer.

Team Explorer

Make sure you have the latest version of the Team Explorer client installed. For instance, if you still have a beta version installed, you should install the RC version.

Web Services

Navigate to the Team Foundation server status web service from the server itself to ensure it is functioning properly:

http:// <servername>:8080/services/v1.0/serverstatus.asmx

If you can access the web service from the server, try accessing the same web service from the client machine.

Network

Try pinging the server using the full DNS name from the client. If this fails, you may need to update the DNS settings on the server, or flush your local DNS resolver cache:

ipconfig /flushdns

Machine.Config

If you are seeing the following error message, make sure the machine.config file is not corrupted:

Unhandled Exception: System.Configuration.ConfigurationErrorsException: Configuration system failed to initialize

If it is, you may want to try copying the System.ServiceModel node from another machine.

Closing

If your problem wasn't solved here, or was solved by another method, please send suggestions, updates and questions for future updates to this post.

From the Forums: Custom Path Policy

Steve — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 02:49:40 GMT

The idea behind the Custom Path Policy is to enable the application or exclusion of source control policies to a specific portion or portions of your source control tree. The Custom Path Policy is part of the Team Foundation Server Power Tools, and can be downloaded for free from the Microsoft Web site.

Let's say you enable the Code Analysis check-in policy on your team project. All is great and the developers are checking in some wonderful code. Unfortunately for the QA team, this also means that Code Analysis is being run on their unit tests, where it isn't really needed (arguably).

The solution would be to create a Custom Path Policy to exclude the unit tests directory from the Code Analysis policy by using the following steps:

Open the Team Explorer tool window in Visual Studio
Right-click on your team project, and select Team Project Settings | Source Control…
Click to the Check-in Policy tab
Click Add…
Select Custom Path Policy and click OK
In the Select Child Policy dropdown, select the policy for which the Custom Path Policy should apply. Note, if you just added the child policy, it may not show up in the dropdown until you close and re-open the Source Control Settings dialog. In our case, we would select the Code Analysis policy.

Next, we must define the regular expressions which act as source control path filters. I personally use Expresso (here and here) to work with regular expressions and find it quite handy though your mileage may vary. Here are some path filter examples:

Apply the policy to all C# source files, except under the UnitTests directory:

^((?!.*(/UnitTests/)).)*\.cs$

Apply the policy to all C# source files, except under the UnitTests and Archive directories:

^((?!.*(/UnitTests/|/Archive/)).)*\.cs$

Apply the policy only to a specific directory:

.*/Path/To/Specific/Directory/.*

Note, trying to enter an invalid regular expression filter results in the following dialog:

It is also important to note that when entering multiple regular expression filters, they are joined using OR under the covers as in (regex 1 OR regex 2 OR BOTH). This is important when trying to specify a project and a file type, and means that you should express both in the same expression.

Now that the regular expressions are set up, we can finish up with our custom path policy:

Once the filters are defined, click OK
You will be presented with the following dialog, which may be somewhat ambiguous:

This means that you need to disable the original policy, which in our case is the Code Analysis policy, or it will be run twice: once by itself and once as part of the Custom Path policy.
Click OK to close the message box
Select the original policy, in our example the Code Analysis policy, and click the Disable button

Team System Link Love: 3

Steve — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 02:32:54 GMT

General

OzTFS.com – Australian Team Foundation Server online community
Radio TFS – Team System Talk Radio
TFS Speed Problems on Martin Hinshelwood's blog
Updating the Team Foundation Server FAQ on Charles Sterling's blog

Add-Ins:

PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2008 released on the MSDN Visual Studio Gallery
Guidance Automation Toolkit (GAT) and Guidance Automation Extensions for Visual Studio 2008 released

Extensibility

Creating a TFS Work Item from an Outlook Mail Message using VSTO on Robert Horvick's Weblog

Work Items

Known Work Item History Limitations for Links & Attachments on the MSMVPS blog

Code Analysis

What happened to the download and documentation of FXCop 1.35 on the Code Analysis Team blog

Data Warehouse and Reporting

TFS Cube – Introduction on Paul Stovell's blog

From the Forums: Changing a Work Item Type

Steve — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 03:01:17 GMT

Out of the box, it is not possible to change the type of an existing work item. For example, in the CMMI template, you can't convert a Bug to a Change Request.

It seems to me that this could be a common scenario in many environments. The customer calls up and reports that the product is 'broken', and customer support opens a Bug work item. After further review, it is determined that the product is not broken, what the customer is really asking for is a Change Request, or enhancement.

While you cannot change the type of an existing work item, there are two options. In a work items query results page in Team Explorer, you can right-click on the work item, and choose from the following two options:

Create Copy of Work Item

Copies a work item that can be modified and saved under another name. This option is useful as a method of creating a work item from a 'template'. It is also handy for creating work items from a Scenario or Quality of Service requirement.

Add Related Work Item

Allows you to create and associate two or more work items. This option is useful when work items are not identical, but are similar. It creates a related link between the original and the copy.

Using this option, the hypothetical review mentioned above would take the original Bug work item and create a copy as a Change Request or Enhancement work item. The two work items are then linked together in the Links tab of the work item form. The original item can then be closed.

5 People That Influenced My Career

Steve — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:25:00 GMT

Andy Schwam and Dani Diaz have started a 'Post-It-Forward' meme highlighting five people that have influenced their careers.

I think Andy says it best:

I encourage all bloggers to write a post and mention 5 people that influenced their careers. It doesn't have to be a chain; you don't need to be "tagged" to join in. Just pick your 5 people. None of the people I am naming have blogs themselves. It's just a chance to say thank you. You can pick anyone you want, it doesn't even have to be someone you know personally or worked with, just someone who has had an impact on your career.

Here is my list in no particular order:

My Parents

Ok, so it sounds cliché, but it is also true. I remember my parents getting me a Mac IIci for Christmas when I was around 15, and I would tinker with HyperCard and FileMaker Pro every chance I got. My Dad had to literally unplug it so I would go to bed (argh!!!). Even before that, I would spend time on my Mom's IBM PC in the basement playing with DOS and DOS-based text editors.

Dan Hart – Owner – Sofwerks

Dan Hart gave me my first job, which I wasn't technically qualified for, and mentored me in web development (ASP, VB6, and SQL Server). If it wasn't for Dan, I'd probably still be towing cars.

Ovidiu Balan – Senior Software Developer – SunGard AMS

Let's start out by saying that Ovi is a genius. I had the privilege of working with Ovi at SunGard for the better part of six years, and his knowledge and technical aptitude amazed me. Among other things, Ovi is responsible for helping me be more scientific and mathematical in my development, as well as to look closer at the business side of a problem before leaping in with a technical solution.

The other part of this story is that Ovi was one of my interviewers before I went to work at SunGard. Little did he know he was also interviewing for a brother-in-law. His sister also worked there, and we worked two cubes apart for the same manager. She and I ended up falling in love there and getting married.

Dani Diaz – Developer Evangelist – Microsoft Corporation

I first met Dani about a year ago at a Philly .NET event. Dani has been a great inspirer and mentor in helping me find my passion and technology focus. Dani has also inspired me to be an influencer and a mentor myself.

Bill Wolff – Grand Poobah – Philly .NET User Group

Bill Wolff started the Philly .NET User Group in 2001. Not only have I learned a ton of information from attending user group meetings over the past year, but I got my current job after meeting a recruiter at one of the Code Camps.

Now that you've seen my list, I encourage you to create your own; say thanks to those that helped you along the way.

Adding TFPT to the Visual Studio Command Prompt

Steve — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 19:18:46 GMT

I was playing around with work items this afternoon, and wanted to delete a couple that I had been playing around with. You can't delete work items from Team Explorer, but you can using the Team Foundation Power Tools. So I opened the Visual Studio Command Prompt, and typed:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC>tfpt
'tfpt' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

Bummer, I guess the Power Tools install didn't add it to the environment variables. I decided to do it myself. First, I right-clicked on the Visual Studio Command Prompt shortcut and chose Properties. In the Target textbox, I could see it was calling C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\vcvarsall.bat. Opening vcvarsall.bat, I found that it was calling vcvars32.bat in the bin directory. I opened vcvars32.bat only to find that it in turn called vsvars32.bat in the Common7\Tools directory.

I opened vsvars32.bat and was relieved to find that it wasn't calling yet another batch file. On line 25, I was able to append the path to the Team Foundation Power Tools, 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2008 Power Tools' before the '%PATH% variable at the end of the line.

It now looks like:

@set PATH=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\BIN;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\Tools;C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5;C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\VCPackages;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2008 Power Tools;%PATH%

Now I can run tfpt from the Visual Studio Command Prompt.

Team System Link Love: 2

Steve — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 05:13:31 GMT

Today's list:

Team System Tutorials on the Team System Rocks web site
Fixing TFS Reports After an Upgrade/Migration to TFS 2008 on Max Yermakhanov's blog
Operations Guidance for Team Foundation Server on the MSDN Web site
Team System Times Newsletter
What happens when a Working Folder is removed from a Workspace on Lorenzo Barbieri's blog

Microsoft Suggestions

Steve — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 03:37:09 GMT

I was asked recently what I thought Microsoft could do to improve the developer experience. I had to think about this one, but not for long.

First, I have always said that having the source code to the .NET framework would make things much easier – hence why Reflector is so popular. But I can't very well make this suggestion because it has already been done. I would however love to see the SharePoint assemblies added to Microsoft's source server.

My next suggestion has been that Microsoft should release a developer version of their server operating systems like they do for SQL Server: fully featured, but not licensed for production. For years I ran Windows 2003 Server on my laptop. And I used it too – multiple websites in IIS, DNS so I didn't have to remember crazy ports, etc. While this afforded me the luxury of developing software in the same environment that it would be deployed to, it wasn't without its pitfalls. For starters, in order to run antivirus, I had to buy the corporate version. I couldn't just install a home edition of Norton for $40, I had to buy the corporate edition for much more. It was also tougher to set up and use as a day to day development platform.

My last suggestion? More on the humorous side, can someone please tell the Certification team that Visual Studio now has IntelliSense and design-time syntax checking? You know, since at least version 6? Some of these questions, and I can't actually give you a real one, are very annoying:

John works for Acme Widgets, and has to build a utility to read XML files into a set of existing classes. Which code method should he use?

XmlSerializer.Deserialize
XmlDeserializer.Deserialize
XmlSerializer.FromXML
XmlDeserializer.FromXml

Who cares!? Let's focus on real, project changing stuff, like when to actually use xml serialization versus binary serialization, etc.

Platinum Bay

Using a Single Strong Name Key across Multiple Projects

I’m a Team System MVP

Thank you Dani

Thank you others

How?

What's Next?

DevSource Article: DevEnv Command Line Switches

DevSource Article: Automation with MSBuild

Team System Link Love - 9

General

Visual Studio and Team System 2008

Team Foundation 2008 SP1

Events

Rosario

Internal Dogfooding

Visual Studio Extensibility

Team Foundation Web Access

Power Tools

Installation and Administration

MSBuild and Team Build

Testing and Performance

Visual Studio Tips

Tools

MSBuild Studio

Visual Studio: Search Hidden Text

Team System Link Love - 8

MVP Summit

Events

Dogfooding

Tools

Updates

Rosario

Upgrading

Tips

Share the Vision

My Blogroll

Philly .Net Code Camp 2008.2 Call for Speakers

Team System Link Love #7

Team System Dogfooding

Events

MVP Summit – Team System

Rosario

Tools

Learning

Integration

Team System General

Team System Link Love #6

Tips

Tools

Events

Project Management

VSX

Process

Database

Boston Code Camp Wrap Up

Visual Studio 2008 Tips and Treats

Writing Better Software with Visual Studio 2008 Team Edition for Software Developers

Automation with MSBuild 3.5 and Team Build 2008

From the Forums: Disappearing Dialog Boxes and Windows

Microsoft Publishes VSTS SOX Guidance

Team System Link Love #5

Admin

Media

Process

Reporting

Tools

General

MSF for CMMI Process Template v4.0 to v4.2 Differences

Root

Classification

Groups and Permissions

Reports

Version Control

Windows SharePoint Services

WorkItem Tracking

WorkItem Tracking – Queries

WorkItem Tracking – TypeDefinitions

Tech-Ed with the Blogfather

MSF for Agile Process Template v4.0 to v4.2 Differences