As a 64bit Windows user, I was interested in Rob Caron’s post about installing TFS on 64bit Windows. There are a couple of gotchas. Here’s the summary from his post earlier today.

64Bit support at RTM

• You can install the Team Foundation data tier in a dual-server deployment on a Windows 64-bit operating system that is running a 64-bit edition of SQL Server 2005. Since the Team Foundation data tier is hosted by SQL Server, it will run natively on a Windows 64-bit operating system.
• You can install Visual Studio 2005 and Team Foundation Build on a Windows 64-bit operating system; both will run under WOW64.
• You must install Team Foundation Server application tier, including Team Foundation Server Proxy, on a 32-bit edition of Windows Server 2003.

With the VSTS2005 & TFS Beta 3 Refresh becoming available on the MSDN Subscriber download site, Rob Caron takes a moment to caution people from migrating their TFS data until the instructions are available later today.

The long wait for the release of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 is over. This morning Microsoft made available to MSDN Subscribers, the following products on their web site. Hopefully the VS2005 Team editions and Team Foundation Server won’t be too far away.

Well there goes the download limit for any month 🙂

A routine check to see if the RTM version of VSTS is available on the MSDN Subscribers Download site revealed that it is not there just yet, but there has been a minor change made to pave the way. Notice the suttle addition of “Pre-production” to the table of contents? I can feel the RTM is just around the corner 🙂

I read a mailing list entry today from Clarke Scott offically announcing the Victorian .NET Architects Users Group. Here’s a snippet from his announcement;

“VDNAUG’s charter is to foster communication and educate .Net professionals focused on Solution/Application architectural design.We hope that VDNAUG can add to the great user group content already available here in Victoria. The VDNAUG presentations will focus on Architects, Architecture and Solution/Application Design.”

Check out their website at http://www.vdnaug.net for more information and for details of their first presentation from Readify’s Martin Granell.

Hopefully we’ll see interest in forming architect focused user groups spread around the country. Good Luck with the user group!

One of the things I need to develop this week are a number of custom check-in policies for use with Visual Studio 2005 Team System RC and Team Foundation Server Beta 3. I have downloaded the latest SDK from http://www.vsipdev.com/downloads/ which is for the Sept CTP which is the latest there at the moment.

NOTE: I have noticed around the “blogosphere” that *many* updates are due out for this product in the next week or so but I will progress on for now with the latest bits and pieces I can get.

I have managed to get a very basic shells of a custom check-in policy up and running and the basic steps are as follows;

1. Add a reference to  “Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Client.dll”
2. Import the following namespace “Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Client”
3. Implement the following interfaces IPolicyDefinition and IPolicyEvaluation
4. Register the assembly in the registry at ”HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftVisualStudio8.0TeamFoundationSourceControlCheckin Policies” on your client

I will post a complete article on the process as well as the code samples in the next couple of days.

 

As promised I have published a copy of my powerpoint slides here for anyone interested in the presentation I did for the QLD MSDN Users Group last Tuesday night. For those you you trying to connect via the WebCast, Chuck reports that there were a number of issues with the audio and that a number of people were simply unable to connect to the webcast. Well the good news is Chuck is confident all the bugs are worked out now so make sure you tune into the next web cast.

From my perspective, I had to revert to an unknown backup virtual machine a few hours before the presentation which introduced a number of hassles including the lack of my sample data, work items, user accounts, source code etc etc… I was glad to have the option of the backup VM but I just didn’t get “into the speaker zone” on the night and I was disappointed not be able to present the demos I had originally planned.

Anyway, I hope to be able to deliver the second part of the presentation to the QLD MSDN Users Group in the early part of the new year.

Download the Powerpoint file here  (404Kb zipped)

The Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite Release Candidate and Team Foundation Server Beta 3 Community-ready VPC image contains the software software preinstalled and configured for you.

• MICROSOFT WINDOWS SERVER 2003, STANDARD EDITION WITH SERVICE PACK 1
  • MICROSOFT WINDOWS SHAREPOINT SERVICES SP1
    • MICROSOFT OFFICE 2003 STANDARD EDITION
      • MICROSOFT PROJECT 2003 PROFESSIONAL
        • MICROSOFT VISIO 2003 PROFESSIONAL
          • MICROSOFT SQL SERVER 2005 SEPTEMBER COMMUNITY TECHNOLOGY PREVIEW
            • MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO 2005 TEAM SUITE, RELEASE CANDIDATE
              • MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO 2005 TEAM FOUNDATION SERVER, BETA 3</UL> Installing the VPC image

              Run the VSTSRCTFSB3Demo.part01.exe file by double-clicking it to extract the following two files;

              1. VSTSRC1.vmc   (12kb)
                 • VSTSRC1.vhd   (9.2Gb)</OL> The default installation path is C:Program FilesVSTSRCTFSB3Demo and you are going to need to make sure you extract to an NTFS partition with around 10Gb available.</BLOCKQUOTE>

              **Getting started**
              
              > To log into the virtual machine you should use the following credentials (contained in the readme.txt file)
              > 
              > Username:    darren  
              > Password:    Pass@word1
              
              The recommended system requirements to use the VPC image are
              
                * PC with 2.0 gigahertz or faster processor 
                    * 1.5 GB RAM minimum 
                        * 10 GB available hard disk space 
                            * Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher video 
                                * DVD-ROM drive 
                                    * Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 software</UL> 
                                  I will post some information about my experiences with the VPC image after I have used ot for a little while.</p>
              

I have just found out that the customer ready VPC image for VSTS & Team Foundation Server Beta 3 has been completed and released to the Microsoft internal network. Expect to see this available from MSDN Subscriber download site and your local Microsoft Developer Product Evangelist (Hi Chuck – wink wink) in the next few days.

This image will allow developers to explore the features of Visual Studio 2005 Team system and Team Foundation Server without needing to go through the installation process. There are a number of great walk throughs and labs available on the image as well.

Dave Glover posted a link on his blog today that points to Microsoft’s online pricing calculator for MSDN Subscriptions for Visual Studio 2005. It displays the pricing in 13 different currencies including Australian Dollars (AUD$). Check it out here

He also reminds us that in a little over a week the opportunity to purchase MSDN Subscriptions at the current price runs out. Better get moving now if you’re waiting to the last minute.