Microsoft has just released Visual Studio 2010 Feature Pack 2 for MSDN Subscribers. This new feature pack has delivered a number of much anticipated features aimed at the testing area of Visual Studio 2010. In summary the keywords for this feature pack are SILVERLIGHT 4, FIREFOX 3.5/3.6 and CODED UI EDITOR.

More specifically, here’s a list of what’s included in the feature pack.

• Use Microsoft Test Manager to capture and playback action recordings for Silverlight 4 applications.
  • Create coded UI tests for Silverlight 4 applications with Visual Studio 2010 Premium or Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate.
    • Edit coded UI tests using a graphical editor with Visual Studio 2010 Premium or Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate.
      • Use action recordings to fast forward through manual tests that need to support Mozilla Firefox 3.5 and 3.6.
        • Run coded UI tests for web applications using Mozilla Firefox 3.5 and 3.6 with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Premium or Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate.</ul> Find out more on the Visual Studio 2010 Feature Packs page.

One of the most frequent questions I get asked when I present on the testing features in Visual Studio 2010 is “Does this work on Silverlight applications?”  My usual response has been to say “Not yet, but it’s in the pipeline.” Not an ideal answer but its the truth.

The good news that Brian Harry has shared with us today via his blog is that this much requested feature plus a few extra goodies are due for imminent release. The new “Feature Pack 2” will include the following.

• Testing Silverlight Applications. Support for test record and playback as well as Coded UI tests for Silverlight 4.0 applications hosted in Internet Explorer.
• Recorded test playback in FireFox. Record your tests once and then playback in both IE and Firefox.
• Coded UI Test Editor. A new designer for easier editing and tweaking your Coded UI Tests.

You can read more on Brian’s blog and see a screen shot of the Coded UI Test Editor. If you haven’t already subscribed to Brian’s RSS feed it might be a good idea so you find out as soon as Feature Pack 2 becomes downloadable.

Microsoft has released a hotfix rollup for Microsoft Test Manger to address a number of issues that users may be experiencing. I have experienced a number of the issues addressed in this hotfix rollup including a few while doing presentations

This hotfix rollup combines the Lab Management GDR, the QFE1 patch as well as a few more hotfixes. You should install this update on all computers where you have Microsoft Test Manager installed.

You can find out more about his update on the Microsoft website at

Description of the hotfix rollup package for Microsoft Test Manager 2010: October 2010

and you can download the update here.

Download this hotfix rollup package from the Microsoft Connect website (Approx. 19Mb)

Next Tuesday night (26th Oct 2010) I have the pleasure of presenting a session for the Wellington VSTS Users group in New Zealand. For anyone in Wellington, here are the details of the meeting.

When is the User Group session

Tuesday 26 October 2010 6:00 p.m , should be finished by 7:30pm

Where is the User Group session

Xero, Level 1, 98 Customhouse Quay, Wellington

Title:  Scrum with TFS 2010

Join Australia’s first Professional Scrum Developer Trainer on a journey through one of the world’s most popular Agile methodologies. In this session, Anthony will provide an overview of Scrum  and delve into how you can utilise Microsoft’s Scrum template in TFS 2010. Anthony was one of the primary instigators that lead to the creation of Microsoft’s Scrum template and was one of the early testers of the template prior to its release. This new template offers many benefits to teams wishing to follow Scrum practises and is a must see session.

RSVP by email here to the user group leader

Over the past few months, I have been busy working on a new course focusing on the Lab Management features of Visual Studio 2010. During it’s Beta-2 release, I worked with a number of customers to help them install and configure the Lab Management features.  This course covers many of the hard-learnt lessons I endured during that time as well as a wealth of information and knowledge I have gathered since.

The course comprises the following 8 modules.

1. Overview of Visual Studio 2010
2. Planning your Lab Environment
3. Getting started with Windows Hyper-V
4. Using System Center Virtual Machine Manager
5. Creating Virtual Machine templates
6. Configuring and provisioning virtual environments
7. Configuring Build-Deploy-Test workflow
8. Testing using Virtual Environments

In announcing the release of this new course a couple of days ago, it is immediately available for in-house training, subject to my availability. I am also accepting registrations of interest for individuals eager to attend public training courses in Australia and New Zealand. If you’d like to find out more about the course, you can visit the course webpage and if you’re interested, you can also register your interest to find out when public course dates are announced.

Next month I have the pleasure of heading across the Tasman Sea to New Zealand to present a free half day seminar on behalf of Microsoft NZ. The seminar is entitled “Driving Business Value with Visual Studio 2010” and will be held in both Auckland and Wellington.

If you’re in Auckland or Wellington and interested in seeing how Visual Studio Application Lifecycle Management can really help your team, make sure you register to come along.

Seminar overview

Organisations involved in the development of software applications are facing reduced budgets, reduced time to market, increasing expectations from the business and many more challenges to remain competitive. Project managers are being asked to increase productivity and reduce waste within a project.

The use of an integrated Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) suite such as Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 can greatly assist organisations to realise increased productivity, improved quality, reduced maintenance costs and more while keeping project costs down.

Many New Zealand companies are already licensed to use Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010 as the central hub for their projects, but few are fully aware of how to maximise the benefits this product has to offer.

In this half-day session, you will see how you can best utilise what many of you already own! You will see demonstrated a number of best practices for achieving success in your own organisation. Things you can take back to the office and put into practice in no time.

Dates and Locations

• October 27th, Wellington
  • October 28th, Auckland</ul>

    How to register?

  http://www.microsoft.com/nz/events/bvvisualstudio/default.mspx

As an ALM Consultant/Trainer I get to travel quite a lot. One of my favourite places to visit is New Zealand as it is comparatively a short flight (just 3.5hrs) for me and the people are always very friendly.

My next trip to New Zealand is just under a month away and I’ll be heading to both Auckland (largest city in NZ) and Wellington (capital of NZ) to deliver my Mastering Testing with Visual Studio 2010 course.

If you’re in New Zealand and interested in learning how to use the new testing features in Visual Studio 2010, find out more on the Enhance ALM website.

In my role as an ALM Consultant/Trainer, I regularly go onto new client sites to assist them in their adoption of Microsoft Team Foundation Server. I also help them choose a suitable process template and often do the customisation of the template to better fit their unique needs.

I am still surprised by the number of sites that don’t even know of Microsoft’s Scrum process template. While it is not a silver bullet and may not suit every organisations needs, it does provide a great option for teams looking to adopt Scrum practises.

Rich Hundhausen, author of the Scrum Developer Training course, has recorded two videos on Channel 9 to show people what this process template is all about.

• Managing Projects using Microsoft Visual Studio Scrum 1.0 – Part 1 (53m 28s)
• Managing Projects using Microsoft Visual Studio Scrum 1.0 – Part 2 (60m 36s)

I strongly suggest if your looking at choosing a process template for your team, you should lock yourself away in a meeting room for a couple of hours and check these videos out.

[Update: 23rd Sep 2010. Microsoft recommend NOT backing up SharePoint with the Power Tool until the Power Tools are updated. More info]

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Last week Microsoft released an updated version of the Team Foundation Server 2010 Power Tools. This new (September) release includes a new Power Tool as well as updates to three of the existing Power Tools.

• NEW – Team Foundation Server Backups
• Updated – Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010 Best Practices Analyzer
• Updated – Team Explorer Enhancements
• Updated – Team Foundation Power Tool (TFPT.EXE)

You can download and read more about the new Power Tools on the download page on Visual Studio Gallery. If you would like to know more about the new TFS Backup Plan Power tool, read-on…

I wanted to use this blog post to provide a quick pictorial run through of the new Team Foundation Server Backups power tool and to make available a Hands-On Lab I have written around the new TFS Backup Power Tool.

Hands On Lab

If you’d like to walk through a Hands-On Lab exercise to see how the TFS Backup and Restore works, you can download it here. (11 page PDF, ~623Kb)

This Hands-On Lab has been written and included in my TFS 2010: Configuration and Administration course. If you’d like to know more about the course, you can read more on the course webpage.

Pictorial walkthrough

If you’d just like to skim through some screenshots to get a feel for the TFS Backup Power tool, keep scrolling.

Creating a TFS Backup Plan in pictures.

After installing the Power Tools, Create a Backup Plan through the Team Foundation Server Console

The TFS Backup Plan is a Wizard based UI.

Provide a UNC path to where you want the database backup files to go

Choose how long you want to keep each backup set for.

Decide if you want to backup the SharePoint and SQL Reporting Services databases.

Provide details of the account to use

If you’ve setup SMTP details in TFS, provide an email address for TFS Backup failure notifications to be sent to.

Choose how frequently you want the backups to occur.

The schedule you choose can be quite specific.

Confirm the settings you have entered.

Keep your fingers crossed that the Readiness Checks all pass.

Finally your Backup Plan has been created.

All done.

You can view your TFS Backup plan from the Team Foundation Administration Console. You can also trigger a manual backup quickly and easily.

Here’s a manually trigger backup in progress.

The backup has completed successfully.

Here’s a sample of what will appear in the backup location.

Restoring from a backup in pictures.

Kick off the Restore wizard from the Start menu.

Provide the UNC path to where the backup sets are stored.

Provide the name of the SQL Server where you want to restore each database to.

Check your details are correct.

The Readiness Checks have all passed.

The restore in action.

Restore is all done.

So now you’ve got no excuse for not having up to date backups of your TFS Server databases.

If you’re heading to TechEd Australia 2010 next week on the Gold Coast, make sure you call past the Enhance ALM stand and drop your business card in for a chance to win an XBox 360 s with 250Gb HDD, Wireless controller, Wireless Headset and ChatPad.

Entries (business cards) must be put in the barrel on WEDNESDAY 25th August at our stand in the Expo Hall. Look for Stand 63 in the back left corner of the expo hall near the Blue theatre. We’ll have the XBox with us so you’ll get to take it home and start playing straight after TechEd too