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
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
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
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.
Avoid the pick-n-mix branching anti-pattern
For the last few days I have been working with a customer in the UK on a grass roots engagement to help them solve their source control issues. They have ended up with a pick-n-mix branching anti-pattern and could not see the way out.
The value of an independent Scotland for me
For the last wee while some of you may have noticed some news coverage about Scottish independence. This post is about the value of an independent Scotland for me, so if you are not interested in politics then move along. It will all be over in a few months and you will likely never have to hear about it outside of history again.
Maven release prepare fails with detected changes in Jenkins
If you are using Team Explorer Everywhere 2012 or 2013 your Maven release prepare fails with detected changes, however it worked when you were using SVN. As you may have noticed I have had a few posts on Jenkins integration with TFS recently. My current customer is migrating away from SVN and Jenkins to TFS 2012 to take advantage of the cool ALM feature however we need to stage in, taking one thing at a time. They have quite a few builds in Jenkins and moving them will take time. The idea is that we can move all of the source over and it is a fairly simple process to re-point Jenkins and Maven to TFS. This allows the teams to take advantage of relating their Source and Work Item while allowing us to create parallel builds and validate the output.
Traveling for work and the Dell Venue 8
I travel a lot and I have been carting around both a Surface 2 Pro and a Surface 2 on my travels. I have been feeling recently that this was a little silly and I wanted to reduce my load and increase my flexibility. So just last week I purchased a Dell Venue 8.
How to delete work items from TFS or VSO
Have you ever created a bunch of work items that you decided later that you had to delete. Well I have… especially as a user of the TFS Integration Platform. And when things go wrong there they can really go wrong.
Run a router on Hyper-V
I want to run a router on Hyper-V so that I can run many VM’s, each with internet access, on corporate and hotel networks. Microsoft touts Routing and Remote Access but there is no way I will go there. First it’s a total pain to setup and run. Second I need to run a whole Windows Server just to have basic DHCP and internet access. Overkill much! There must be a better way.
Getting a service account for VSO with TFS Service Credential Viewer
Have you tried to get a service account for Visual Studio Online (VSO)? Did you know that you can use the TFS Service Credential Viewer to get it. When you join a local or azure build server to your VSO account you are asked to log in with an account that is an administrator to get credentials. However it cant continue to use your credentials as your Microsoft ID token expires after 2 days and you would have to login again. Not a good experience. However there is a little bit of code that the build server uses to get a basic service username and password that it uses instead. I have used this to create unit tests that hit the TFS API’s in VSO as well as do all sorts of automated tasks that I need.
TFS Process Template migration script updated
Did you know that you can quite easily to do a TFS process template migration? Did you notice I used the “quite” in there. Well if you think of the Process Template as the blueprints then the Team Project that you create is the concrete instance of that blueprint.
Access denied user needs label permission in TFS
There is always something new to learn with TFS and today I learned something old. I had a user today that was constantly getting the message “Access denied user needs label permission in TFS”.
Import Excel data into TFS with History
Have you ever tried to push data into TFS with Excel? I have, and it can often be the opposite of sweetness and light. The idea is to import Excel data into TFS with History.
Mask password in Jenkins when calling TEE
When you use the release build plugin in Jenkins to create a new release the plugin inadvertently leaves your password in clear text in the log files. We need to be able to mask password in Jenkins when calling Team Explorer Everywhere (TEE) so that we meet security requirements.
Configuring Jenkins to talk to TFS 2013
I am working quite a lot with some Java teams at the moment who are using SVN and Jenkins. We are moving them over to TFS and TF Build and we wanted to make sure that we were minimally disruptive to first I need to configuring Jenkins to talk to TFS 2013.
Migrating to office 365 from Google Mail
A few months ago I decided to make use of Office 365 but I have run into a bunch of roadblocks. Migrating to office 365 from Google Mail as it seams that Office 365 and Google Mail are not the best of friends. They seam to be in a state of cold war.
Be a kid again and upgrade to Windows Phone 8.1 Developer Preview
I love new things not just because they are new but because they are exiting. Discovery is something that we lose as we get older but it should be nurtured so be a kid again and upgrade to Windows Phone 8.1.
Blogging from 2500 meters
I am currently 2k meters up the side of a mountain in the French Alps and while skiing is fun it takes its toll on my knees that are already a bit dodgy. Thus I have been Skiing in the mornings and sunning myself in the afternoons. It is about 25 degrees Celsius here during the day and tad sunny.
Using multiple email alias with your existing Microsoft ID
Did you know that you can have multiple email alias associated with an existing Microsoft ID (formally Live ID). The first thing that you should do if you receive a new email address, wither corporate or personal, is associate it with your current Microsoft ID.
