I was doing my usual scan of Rob Caron’s great blog on Visual Studio Team System and I came across the announcement of the TeamSystemRocks community site. This site has only just been released and they state they have quite a bit of work to do on the graphics side of things but don’t let that fool you. The content that is already available (including some great videos) is fantastic. For anyone using or considering looking into Team System, make sure you bookmark this site.

I was just reading with some interest some of the changes we are going to see in the July CTP release of Visual Studio Team Foundation Server. At the moment we are still waiting for “drop 3” to become available on the MSDN Subscribers site for we can download the July CTP of VSTS. While we wait for the download to become available, check out Buck Hodges post on the changes we should expect to see in this release.

Great to see AD/AM is not longer required and I don’t mind that you can’t do a single server installation of this CTP. I have been using dual-server installs for quite a while now.

While your at it, make sure you check out the recently released Team System Rocks community.

Just noticed that the Visual Studio 2005 July CTP “Drop 2” is now available to MSDN Subscribers. This drop includes;

• Visual Studio 2005 Professional edition (July CTP)
  • Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office (July CTP)
    • Visual SourceSafe 2005 (July CTP)</UL> Bring on Drop 3…. (Team System/Team Foundation Server)</p>

I was just reading Aaron Stebners blog regarding the “staged” release of Visual Studio 2005 July CTP. Sure enough, a quick check of the MSDN Subscriber download site reports the following;

The Visual Studio 2005 July Community Technology Previews will be delivered in three phases during the month of July:

Drop 1: Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition, Visual Studio 2005 Premier Partner Edition, and the Visual Studio 2005 SDK for use with Drop 1 and Drop 2

Drop 2: Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition, Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions, Visual SourceSafe 2005, and Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the Microsoft Office System

Drop 3: Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite, Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server, and the Visual Studio 2005 SDK for use with Drop 3

Hopefully Drop 3 won’t be too far away for those of us most interested in Team Foundation Server.

I had another visit from my friend the “Error 32000” today. I find he is never very far from any installation of Team Foundation Server in any environment that is not a 100% fresh installation. The 32000 error is a catch-all error that occurs during the Custom Actions part of the TFS installation. The good news is that from the July CTP on, this all-encompassing error is due to be replaced with specific error codes which should make the task of resolving this nasty little error a whole lot simpler.

For anyone looking to evaluate Team Foundation Server, I have a strong recommendation for you.

• Use the Customer Ready VPC images available from Microsoft
  OR

  • Install into a COMPLETELY new/fresh environment and follow the instructions to the letter.</UL> The pain threshold goes something like this;

  • Customer ready VPC’s (Low pain – 95% success rate)

    • Absolutely clean installation, following instructions (Low to medium pain – 75% success rate)
      • Install into an existing domain on clean servers built using corporate build scripts (Excruciating pain levels – 0% success rate)</UL> Here is another picture of my little friend who pops up when you have only millimetres of installation to go

      </p>

Just a quick blog entry to thank Chuck for a great Independence Day BBQ today. Chuck chose an Iraqi theme for his picnic today and rustled up dishes including; Torshi Makhloot Aash-e SHoleh Ghalamkar Donbalaan Bastani Akbar-Mashti Morabaa-yeh Seeb </UL> Thanks for a great afternoon relaxing by the canals in Runaway Bay. A big “Hello again” to Greg Low who I finally managed to catchup with at the BBQ. Due to some training commitments on Tuesday afternoons I have not had much of a chance to catch up with Greg this year at the QMSDNUG. If you have not had the pleasure of listening in to his podcast yet, make sure you do as he has some great guests planned for the next few sessions. Find out more at  www.SQLDownUnder.com  </TD></TR></TABLE></p>

Well I have just installed Team Foundation Server from scratch three times now over the last two days, each time trying to resolve the insidious Error 32000. I have followed a number of potential solutions offered on a variety of forums but so far I can’t seem to get past this issue.

I have followed the latest “Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server Beta 2 Installation Guide” from the Microsoft website and still no joy. (Note: I have installed using this document successfully before)

When I finally get past this bug I will be sure to update this entry in my blog. For anyone else suffering TFS installation issues, be sure to check out the MSDN Forums on Team Foundation Server Installation & Setup issues.

[UPDATE: 1/07/05  Deleted the server images and rebuilding from scratch AGAIN:( ]

Microsoft have just released a June CTP of Visual Studio Team Suite(3.5Gb) and Team Foundation Server (377Mb). They are available for download from the Microsoft MSDN Subscriber site.

Check out Rob Caron’s post on whether you should stick with Beta 2 or try out the June CTP.

Microsoft have officially set the launch date for Visual Studio 2005. The announcement was made here at TechED 2005 in Orlando and the big date is the week of 7th November 2005.

To coincide with the announcement, Microsoft have setup a new web site at http://msdn.microsoft.com/launch2005/ that provide more up to date details on various launch events as they are annouced around the world.

Here is a snippet from the press release;

ORLANDO, Fla. — June 7, 2005 — On the second day of Microsoft® Tech•Ed 2005, Microsoft Corp. continued to speak about the investments the company and industry partners are making across its products to ensure that IT organizations can effectively leverage the Microsoft platform and existing skill sets to maximize value, reduce cost and complexity, and ease the deployment of new applications. As part of the keynote address, Paul Flessner, senior vice president of Server Applications at Microsoft, showed the company’s continued momentum in preparation for the launch of SQL Server™ 2005, Visual Studio® 2005 and BizTalk® Server 2006, and announced that these products will be formally launched during the week of Nov. 7. This launch represents a significant milestone and demonstrates Microsoft’s commitment to delivering the next-generation platform for connected systems that provides unparalleled developer productivity, ability to effectively handle mission-critical applications and an infrastructure to provide better insight into business decisions.

The MOC2631 Workshop is one of the first offerings from Microsoft on Visual Studio Team System. I have just been reading what Stephen Borg has had to say on his experiences from the Beta run of the workshop recently. Check out the blog entry over at Accentient.com.

P.S. Can we have it now? Please, please, please 😉