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Join a machine to your azure hosted domain controller

Join a machine to your azure hosted domain controller

Now that you have finished moving your Domain Controller Azure VM to a Virtual Network  ] you need to be able to join a machine to your azure hosted domain controller.

Understanding TFS migrations from on-premise to Visual Studio Online

Understanding TFS migrations from on-premise to Visual Studio Online

I have recently been doing a lot of migrations and Willy  asked me to write a white-paper about understanding TFS migrations from on-premise to Visual Studio Online.

Create log entries in Release Management

Create log entries in Release Management

I have been working through my demos for NDC London next week. And I found it almost impossible to create log entries in Release Management where I wanted. While in London for NDC 2014 I was in the same building as the filming of Mission Impossible 5. I worked on a TV show for my work experience at school and ended up with an IMDB profile  and what always struck me was how much time was spent getting one a few minutes or even seconds of footage. If you ever get a chance to even be in the audience for a 30 minute comedy show, be warned… you will be there for at least 6 hours to get only 25 minutes of air time.

NDC London 2014: Why TFS no longer sucks and VSO is awesome

NDC London 2014: Why TFS no longer sucks and VSO is awesome

I was in London last week to do a talk on why TFS no longer sucks entitled “ Second Look, Team Foundation Server & VSO  ”. I had a tone of preparatory work to do too make the demos smooth. The great god Murphy was however not smiling, but he was not angry. Some errors occurred, but no blue screens.

Create a Standard Environment for Release Management in Azure

Create a Standard Environment for Release Management in Azure

Next week I will be speaking at NDC London 2014  and I have been working on my demo. Since Connect() everything for a little bit easier and I need to create an environment for Release Management for Visual Studio 2013.

Create a Release Management pipeline for Professional Developers

Create a Release Management pipeline for Professional Developers

Now that I have it configured  I want to show how to create a Release Management pipeline for Professional Developers and Development Teams. I was speaking at NDC London 2014 this week and as my talk is all about how Team Foundation Server does not suck  like it used to back before 2012 I need to demonstrate automatic environment deployments as part of my demos with a Release Management pipeline. This session is specifically geared towards users of 2005, 2008, or 2010 that got frustrated with the lack of some features. Specifically hierarchical work item relationships and teams among others. I want to show that the advances since the 2012 release of the product really make it worth considering again.

Configure a DNS server for an Azure Virtual Network

Configure a DNS server for an Azure Virtual Network

I just got done configuring a DC in Azure for AAD integrated Release Management  and I need to now Configure a DNS server for an Azure Virtual Network. This will tell Azure that any servers that are added to this virtual network should use this DNS server. This should allow any machine added to this virtual network to be able to join the domain that we have configured.

Microsoft Surface 3 unable to boot from USB

Microsoft Surface 3 unable to boot from USB

Recently I had a crash of Windows 10 and while usually you can boot into recovery mode, Windows was uncooperative. This was when I found my Microsoft Surface 3 unable to boot from USB!

Move your Azure VM to a Virtual Network

Move your Azure VM to a Virtual Network

When I first completed configuring a DC in Azure for AAD integrated Release Management  I did not add my virtual machine to a virtual network. And I really should have and in the usual poopyness that is servers you can’t move it. You effectively need to delete your VM leaving the disks and create a new machine definition that is correctly configured.

Configuring a DC in Azure for AAD integrated Release Management

Configuring a DC in Azure for AAD integrated Release Management

I will be speaking at NDC London: Second Look, Team Foundation Server & VSO  and I am planning to be a little adventurous with the demo. For this I will be configuring a DC in Azure for AAD integrated Release Management so that I can do cloud demos.

Installing Visual Studio 2015 side by side with 2013 on Windows 10

Installing Visual Studio 2015 side by side with 2013 on Windows 10

You know that I like nothing better than taking a few risks and I have been very happy in the past running MSFT preview bits on bare metal. As Microsoft has just announced Visual Studio 2015 Ultimate Preview I need to be running it on my local computer for demos.

Could not find mappings for all states defined in 'Test Suit' work item type

Could not find mappings for all states defined in 'Test Suit' work item type

After upgrading to TFS 2013.3 you get some reports of errors in MTM from your users. Specifically they get a “Could not find mappings for all states defined in ‘Test Suit’ work item type” error when connecting. I have also seen “TF400860: TestManagement: Version 19, MinVersion: 19” in some cases in the web access.

Use corporate identities with existing VSO accounts

Use corporate identities with existing VSO accounts

If you configure Active Directory Federated Services (ADFS) you can use corporate identities with existing VSO accounts. Link to your internal domain and you can get a completely seamless Single-Sign-on from your local network to the cloud for Office 365, SharePoint Online, and now Visual Studio Online (VSO).

TFS Build reports Licencies.licx: unable to load type

TFS Build reports Licencies.licx: unable to load type

When you do a build you can get an “unable to resolve type” message from the licencies.licx file that you have checked in. This prevents you from having a successful build in Team Build.

Upcomming Scrum at Scale Workshop from Scrum.org

Upcomming Scrum at Scale Workshop from Scrum.org

If you are scaling agility in the enterprise through scrum then you will understand when I say that this can be a very difficult problem. And it’s mostly about people and about culture and the Scrum at Scale Workshop  can help you.

Reuse your MSDN benefits with your Org ID

Reuse your MSDN benefits with your Org ID

If you are trying to reuse your MSDN benefits with your Org ID but you previously activated against your Microsoft ID then you will need to cancel your subscription to reuse it.

Uncommitted changes messing up your sync in Git with Visual Studio

Uncommitted changes messing up your sync in Git with Visual Studio

Sometimes when you try to Pull changes from the server to your local repository you get a “cannot pull because there are uncommitted changes”. This is uncommitted changes messing up your sync

NDC London: Second Look, Team Foundation Server & VSO

NDC London: Second Look, Team Foundation Server & VSO

While I have spoken at many events in the USA while I lived there, and even did a few keynotes for the Visual Studio 2012 launch, I have been trying to figure out the scene here in Europe. As such I submitted to a few events and got accepted to speak at NDC London.

Move an Azure storage blob to another store

Move an Azure storage blob to another store

Move an Azure storage blob to another store took a little bit longer than I thought that it would. All I wanted to do was move a VHD from one storage account to another. However this is a little more complicated than it seems on the surface.

Bug in the Visual Studio Git integration that results in a merge conflict

Bug in the Visual Studio Git integration that results in a merge conflict

When doing a PULL from Git from an origin\branch but you have changes locally you may encounter a bug in the Visual Studio Git integration that results in a merge conflict fetching the head of the remote Git repository.

Creating training virtual machines in Azure

Creating training virtual machines in Azure

I am teaching the Managing Projects with Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2013  class next week in Cheltenham and for that I need 16 VM’s based on the Visual Studio 2013 Update 3 ALM Virtual Machine  . To make life easier I will be creating training virtual machines in Azure.

Bruce Lee on Scrum and Agile

Bruce Lee on Scrum and Agile

There are wise people in this world and that wisdom often transcends the topic that they are intentionality addressing. Good philosophy can be applied beyond those bounds. As an example, here is Bruce Lee on Scrum and Agile:

Agility and Windows 10: Upgrading my Surface Pro 2

Agility and Windows 10: Upgrading my Surface Pro 2

You know me, I am always willing to take a little risk to get some gain. As such I will be upgrading my Surface Pro 2 to Windows 10 Technical Preview on the train on the way back from teaching the Professional Scrum Foundations in Cheltenham.

Install of TFS 2013.3 with SharePoint 2013 on Windows Server 2012 R2 Update 1

Install of TFS 2013.3 with SharePoint 2013 on Windows Server 2012 R2 Update 1

I have been onsite in Athens for the last month to do a migration from StarTeam to TFS. We did an install of TFS 2013.3 with SharePoint 2013 on Windows Server 2012 R2 Update 1. This was my first install of TFS 2013.3 from scratch so I thought that it would be a good idea to walk through the process.

Yorkhill Ice Bucket Challenge

Yorkhill Ice Bucket Challenge

Yesterday Buck Hodges  took the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. He was challenged by Brian Harry  who was in turn by Adam Cogan  . As I know all three of these folks it was only a matter of time before I got nominated. My torturer of the day is Buck. Really… how bad can it be? I did Tough Mudder this weekend my favourite obstacle is Arctic Enema  :p!!

Migrating source from Perforce to Git on VSO

Migrating source from Perforce to Git on VSO

I have been working with a customer in London this week that is using TFS 2010 for work item tracking and Perforce for source control. Here is how I got on migrating source from Perforce to Git on VSO.

You can't use WITADMIN on versions older than TFS 2010

You can't use WITADMIN on versions older than TFS 2010

I encountered a bit of a red herring today when I was trying to rename a Work Item Type Definition (WITD) and received the message that you can’t use WITADMIN on versions older than TFS 2010. However the server was TFS 2010.

Avoid the Bug as Task anti-pattern in Azure DevOps

Avoid the Bug as Task anti-pattern in Azure DevOps

For the last few months, I have been working with an enterprise customer that has been steadily adopting Work Item Tracking in TFS. I have learned that you should avoid the Bug as a Task anti-pattern.

Merge Team Projects into one in TFS

Merge Team Projects into one in TFS

In TFS 2012 the product team introduced the concept of Teams into TFS. Before this many organisations created multiple Team Projects and now want to merge Team Projects into one, or at least fewer. There are many reasons you might have done this in the past but there is no reason to live with this.

Maven release perform tries to do a Get to a workspace sub folder in TFS

Maven release perform tries to do a Get to a workspace sub folder in TFS

If you are using TFS and specifically switching from SVN to TFS then you might run into the issue that your Maven release perform tries to do a Get to a workspace sub folder. This will not work as TFS has a validation exception to trying to map a sub folder inside an existing workspace. That could be disastrous in a real situation.

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