I sat down to build a clean TFS server for my presentation at TechEd Australia in a couple of weeks and I was remembering just how many times I have done this before. Each time I installed a new TFS server I figure I won’t need to do it again too often so it’s not worth the time to automate the process. Now if only I had taken the time the first once or twice I could have saved well over a day of my life if you add up the time saved on each installation 🙂

Anyway, I decided to take advantage of fellow Team System MVP Grant Holliday’s recent efforts where he not only documented the automated process but also provided the scripts for easy download!

Here are the links to Grant’s helpful blog posts

• Introduction
  • Part 1 – Preparation & Configure network interfaces
    • Part 2 – Building the ISO
      • Part 3 – Installing Team Foundation Server unattended
        • Part 4 – Script for Configuring TFS for HTTPS and SSL Only</ul> Many of the steps Grant talks about are equally useful for any Windows Server 2003 installation, not just TFS.

        Anyway, well done Grant.

I had to add the TFS Build Service to an existing Windows Server 2003 machine for a client today. After installing the TFS Build components and applying the TFS SP1 update, I wanted to apply VSTS SP1 to the machine. They have VSTS installed on the server so they can execute tests and code analysis as part of their automated build process.

When I double-clicked the VS80sp1-KB926601-X86-ENU.exe file I received the following error – “Error 1718.File C:WINDOWSInstaller2adcb2dd.msp did not pass the digital signature check.

A quick visit to the suggested link http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=73863 reveals an interesting issue when applying a large Microsoft Windows Installer (.msi) package or a large Microsoft Windows Installer patch (.msp) package on a computer that is running Microsoft Windows Server 2003 or Microsoft Windows XP.

Fortunately there is a hotfix readily available for Windows Server 2003 that fixes the issue and allowed me to apply the service pack without further incident.

Back at the end of March Brian Harry announced that Microsoft had acquired devBiz, makers of TeamPlain among other thing. In his interview Brian also stated “Within the next several months, we will also release an updated version of TeamPlain as part of the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server Power Tool and we will be offering support through Microsoft Product Support and MSDN Forums.“

Well the good news is, the wait is nearly over. Latest word is that there might be something for us to download early next week with any luck

This year I have the privilege of being invited to speak at TechEd Australia for the first time. While I have worked and attended many TechEd events both in Australia and the US over the past eight years, this will be my first speaking role so I’m pretty excited.

The session I have been asked to present is entitled “Best Practices for Team-Based Software Development” and I will be delivering it at 9:45am on Friday morning. This is a reasonably good time as most people should be awake and ready for the session after the TechEd party from the night before. If you are interested in learning more about how Visual Studio Team System can help improve your team-based development projects, be sure to come along.

Here’s a list of the other VSTS/TFS focused sessions you may want to consider at TechEd Australia.

Thursday 9th August

3:30pm DEV347 – Unit Testing and Test Driven Development (Neil Roodyn)

Friday 10th August

9:45am DEV309 – Best Practices for Team-Based Software Development (Anthony Borton)

11:30am DEV302CT – Extending TFS to host and build mainframe codebase

TBA

DEV346 – Next Generation Team Foundation Server

DEV316 – Build Server Virtualisation (Mitch Denny)

A full list of sessions for both Australia and New Zealand TechEd are now available.

I had a question from a client this morning who was having problems deleting a couple of files in the “documents” folder using Team Foundation Explorer. They right-clicked the file to delete and selected delete from the context menu. The file dutifully disappeared and they thought everything was fine. The problem occurred when they refreshed the view in Team Explorer and the files suddenly reappeared. They did not see any error message when they did the delete, the files disappeared as expected but they would keep coming back. I walked them through a couple of security settings and everything was OK in that area. I then had them go into the Project Portal and view the document library through the portal. It was at this stage that the actual issue came to light…  The files were checked out by another team members (for the past 5 weeks). As soon as the person checked the files in, the deletion process was far more successful.

The problem in summary is that when you try to delete files from the WSS Documents folder using Team Explorer and someone has the files checked out, the delete appears to work and no error is shown if someone has the files checked out. The files will suddenly reappear next time the view is refreshed.

The next chat with the VSTS Product Team has been scheduled for the 4th July (Australian date) or the 3rd July in the US. The next chat will be a great way to find out what’s coming up in the next release of Orcas!

 

Here are the details;

 

Join members of the Visual Studio Team System product group to discuss features available in Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, Team Editions for Architects, Developers, Database Pros, and Testers. In addition, discuss what’s new in the upcoming Orcas CTP.

 

We will be holding two sessions:

 

Join the chat on Wednesday, July 4^rd , 2007 from 3:00am – 4:00am Eastern Standard Time (NSW, Vic, QLD). Add to Calendar | Additional Time Zones

            -or-

Join the chat on Wednesday, July 4^rd, 2007 from 9:00am – 10:00am Eastern Standard Time (NSW, Vic, QLD). Add to Calendar | Additional Time Zones

 

As many of you will already know, there were quite a number of reports of issues when installing the TFS Service Pack 1 update. I personally had a number of issues on client sites with one requiring a restore of backup when I tried to install the service pack. Much of the problem centred around issues to do with the quiescence patch that you needed to apply to your TFS server prior to installing the service pack.

According to Brian Harry’s blog post, the following things have been fixed in the updated Quiescing GDR;

·         TFS SP1 and Hotfixes fails to install on a SQL Clustered Data Tier.

·         TFS SP1 and Hotfixes may fail to install due to issues connecting to the TFS databases.

·         TFS Databases may be left in Single-User mode after SP1 or Hotfix installation failure.

To find out more, read Brian’s post on “Updated Quiescing patch released” and then download the updated patch here

Well my blog’s been a bit quite over the past month or so and I wanted to spend a minute considering this.

What does a quiet blog mean?

Well in my case, it is simply a reflection on a major change to my work life. I have completed a long term contract nearly two months ago and since then I have been absolutely flat out with work and work related travel. To give you an idea, here’s a snapshot of some of the things I’ve been up to in the past couple of months;

• Developed a VSTS course for an Australian government department and delivered it three times
• Increased my consulting commitment to a company based on the Gold Coast to help them refine their use of TFS and automate much of the build and deployment
• Commenced VSTS consulting engagements with three new clients in addition to my existing clients
• Attended the Sharepoint Conference in Sydney
• Signed on as the Australian Lead Technical Readiness Instructor in Windows Server 2008: Developer & Architect for Microsoft Australia
• Delivered a four day Windows Server 2008 Touchdown training event for developers in Sydney
• Delivered 8 x one day Windows Server 2008 “Chalk and Talk” session in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra & Perth
• I’ve also been a guest editor on TechTalkBlogs and I’ve been trying to make sure I contribute as regularly as I can.

So what’s coming up?

• I’ve got two VSTS Level 300 workshops to run in Brisbane (Sold out) and Sydney
• I’ve been selected as a speaker for TechEd Australia 2007 so I’ll be busy preparing for that
• I’m putting together a new event for the Microsoft Technical Readiness team on “Windows Server 2008 Developer Essentials” which I’ll initially deliver in Brisbane, Sydney & Melbourne in August/September
• I’m also in the early planning stages of a two day “Upgrading to Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team System and Team Foundation Server 2008” course for the Microsoft Technical Readiness team.

As a final note, the blogs not the only thing I’m been neglecting over the past two months. My wife is definitely on my case to clean up around the home office too 🙂

It’s that time again for the Microsoft Australia Technical Readiness Team to run the Visual Studio 2005 Deep Dive training here in Australia. I attended the first run of this event in Australia late last year and this course is a must for anyone responsible for installing, administering and customising a Team Foundation Server in your organisation.

The Australian dates:

• Brisbane 2nd July – 4th July 2007
  • Sydney 9th July – 11th July 2007</li> </ul>

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    You can find the course outline and registration info on the Microsoft Partner Site.

    NOTE: This event is great preparation for many of the requirements for the 70-510: TS: Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server exam.

I just noticed that my good friend Martin Woodward has joined Eric Sink on the latest DotNetRocks show. I have it downloading as I write this and I’m looking forward to hearing their thoughts on Source Control and Continuous Integration. I have had the pleasure of meeting Martin last year at TechEd in Boston and then again earlier this year at the MVP Summit in Seattle.

Check out the DotNetRocks show 242.