Omar Villarreal's Blog

New VSTS and TFS 2008 Trial VPCs

If you have been using any of the two Team System trial VPCs that were released months ago you are probably aware that they are about to expire. Common knowledge was that there were not going to be new trial VPCs available right away and that we would be a couple of weeks without a trial VPC. But it turns out new replacement VPCs were created and released just a couple of days ago. You will find, just like before, a VPC with TFS only and one with TFS and Team Suite but this time they include SP1 of all those products and the latest DBPro release. And for those Hyper-V fans out there, those 2 images are also available for Hyper-V. Check out this blog post from Brian Randell for details or go directly to download the images:

• VSTS “all-up” Virtual PC/Virtual Server image (6 GB download, expands to 15 GB)
• TFS “only” Virtual PC/Virtual Server image (3 GB download, expands to 8 GB)
• VSTS “all-up” Hyper-V image (6 GB download, expands to 15 GB)
• TFS “only” Hyper-V image (3 GB download, expands to 8 GB)

Happy 2009 to everyone!!

New and Improved TFS Branching Guidance

Check out the new TFS Branching Guidance document at http://www.codeplex.com/TFSBranchingGuideII. The first version was a great success and Microsoft received a lot of feedback on it. On this release you will find a lot more scenarios, answers to questions you would ask when reading the first release, a lot more graphics (diagrams)... This release is made of multiple documents:

TFS Branching Guide - Main 2.0
This is the main article which briefly explains branching concepts and introduces 3 levels of the most common branching scenario

TFS Branching Guide - Scenarios 2.0
A collection of less common branching scenarios

TFS Branching Guide Q&A 2.0
A set of most frequently asked questions with answers

TFS Branching Guide Drawings 2.0
A set of branching drawings in different formats including a large branching poster

TFS Branching Guide Labs 2.0
A couple of examples for hands on labs with step by step instruction for practicing the branching scenarios

A new DBPro release: "Better, Stronger, Faster."

Woohoo! It's out! Visual Studio 2008 Database Edition (aka DBPro or Data Dude) GDR has been released, and it comes it a lot of improvements. I couldn't help it, knowing what the improvements are and having used the pre-release versions reminded me of the opening sequence of the 1970's show "The Six Million Dollar man" (I guess 6 million was a lot money back then and no, I am not that old, I watched it later in Mexico, after it was dubbed into Spanish): "Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology...Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster." That is how I perceive this new DBPro release, and remember, if you own the Development edition of Visual Studio 2008, you are now also licensed for the Database edition!

Check out the official blog post about the release: http://blogs.msdn.com/gertd/archive/2008/11/25/visual-studio-team-system-2008-database-edition-gdr-rtm.aspx

Download page: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=bb3ad767-5f69-4db9-b1c9-8f55759846ed&displaylang=en

Introducing a new source for finding out about Team System events worldwide.

The Team System community has been growing over time and information about the different events and presentations is being published everywhere. But now there is a single place where event organizers can use to advertise their events so you just have to go to a single place to go to find out about upcoming Team System events. If you know of any communities or event organizers that may not be aware of this, please let them know about

http://TeamSystemRocks.com/blogs/VstsEvents.

(Special thanks to Chris Koenig for the suggestion)

New Team Foundation Power Tool (TFPT) Version Released

The October 2008 version of the Team Foundation Power Tools was just released and it comes with some really nice and compelling improvements and new features. Including:

• Windows Shell Extension
  Enables you to perform TFS Version Control operations within Windows Explorer (this is my personal favorite of this release). If you want this feature be sure to select Custom Installation option as it is not installed by default.
• Team Members (my second favorite feature of this release)
  This allows you to see individual team members' Checkin History, Shelvesets, Pending Changes and more.
• PowerShell support
• Updates to the TFPT.EXE command
• Help and Setup improvements

Check it all out here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/tfs2008/bb980963.aspx

Great DBPro news!

I am getting this to you a day late but here it is. Gert Drapers announced yesterday at his DBPro session at PDC (the session slot of the day) that the Release Candidate of the DBPro GDR has been released.

Note that there are no new features since the September CTP, this release only includes bug fixes and performance improvements. The format of the DBProj file is final so you can now start converting your projects and trust that you will not have to do it again. Be sure to read Gert's post for important information about installing the GDR RC and links to the downloads.

New VSTS VPC to be handed out tomorrow at PDC

Are you at PDC this week? Be sure to get your hard disk with the new Visual Studio 2010 CTP Virtual PC. This means that in upcoming VSTS sessions you will be able to bring up the VPC that the speakers are using and try out what you learn right away or even better, as you learn it!!! Woohooo!!

Take a look at this too, if you're not at PDC you can download it: http://blogs.msdn.com/jeffbe/archive/2008/10/27/check-out-the-new-team-system-2010-ctp.aspx

Dallas VSTS Users Group Meeting on Wed. Oct/15

Database development with DBPro as part of your application's lifecycle – D. Omar Villarreal

Note: Visual Studio 2008 Team Edition for Dtabase Developers, aka DBPro, is now part of the Developer edition (see the "Better together" section here for details)  so if you own the Developer Edition and you are not using DBPro, this is your opportunity to jump-start your database development using DBPro.

We will discuss how you can take advantage of the database development tools included in Visual Studio Team System to better manage your database changes. Topics include:

• Declarative database development
• Efficient version control of your database
• Refactoring
• Unit Testing Stored Procedures
• Deploying your database
• Features from the upcoming DBPro GDR (General Distribution Release)
• And more...

For more information visit www.DallasVSTS.com.

Microsoft Patterns and Practices Summit

Go register and and mark your calendars! The 2008 Patterns and Practices Summit will take place in Redmond the week of November 3, 2008. Attend the event to gain lot of knowledge and attend the "Evening events" :-)

Take a look at the sessions and the schedule.

DBPro 2008 GDR September CTP is out

The Visual Studio 2008 Team Edition for Database Developers (aka DBPro) GDR (General Development Release) September CTP has been released. This is the last CTP and will be followed by a Release Candidate ans then RTM. If you have installed a previous pre-release version you will have to uninstall it before installing this new version. Also, this CTP requires you to have Visual Studio 2008 RTM SP1 installed as well as Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition 3.5 SP1. Up until this GDR DBPro required developers to install either SQL Express or SQL Server on their development boxes in order to be able to do database development with the DBPro tools. This will no longer be required as DBPro now uses the SQL Server Compact Edition.

For details and release notes: http://blogs.msdn.com/gertd/archive/2008/09/30/visual-studio-team-system-2008-database-edition-gdr-september-ctp.aspx

For the download options and more details: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=bb3ad767-5f69-4db9-b1c9-8f55759846ed&displaylang=en

Visual Studio Team Edition for Database developers (DBPro) now bundled with the Developer edition

... well, starting tomorrow (Oct/1/2008) actually. So those people who own the Developer edition of Visual Studio will be licensed for the DBPro edition as well. This is great news because up until today you had to invest a lot more money in Visual Studio licensing just to get such essential development tool. I hope everybody starts taking advantage of this right away, several of the clients that I have worked with and did not have a license for it wish they did after they saw what they could do with it.

For a quick DBPro overview video go here: http://teamsystemrocks.com/files/10/vsts/entry1459.aspx. It was recorded using the 2005 version of DBPro but it will give you a great insight of the possibilities if you have not seen DBPro before. This video is about 1-hour long and it really is a quick overview.

Reference: The "Better together" paragraph of this Microsoft document:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/products/cc948977.aspx

Using the TFS API in your 64-bit development environment

I recently got a new laptop and I am now running 64-bit Windows Vista and today I was working on some custom code using the Team Foundation Server API. My unit tests ran great but when the time came to test the final product I started getting a weird error:

[System.BadImageFormatException]: {"Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a' or one of its dependencies. An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format."}

After scratching my head a few times and making sure I had all the correct project references and that I had done everything right I started digging a little bit. I found some forum post that gave me a hint, I tried it and it worked;

When you use the TFS API you need to make sure you set the 'Platform target' project property to x86. You can find this property on the 'Build' tab or page of the Project Properties.

See also: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms164699.aspx

Team System Widgets

After some time of "stability" the Team System Widgets page has been updated. Check out this comprehensive reference that links you to all (well, "most" is probably a more accurate statement since there are new tools coming out quite often) Visual Studio Team System... widgets.

VSTS and VSX Cocktail: Team Review

There are a few Code Review projects on CodePlex and they apply to different situations. But the more sophisticated one and the one I really like and have used in more implementations is TeamReview, by JB Brown, who recently added me as a contributor to the project so I could help with a bug I had identified, but all the credit belongs to him, I am clarifying that because you will see my name there but JB has done all the work.

But JB's implementation, which uses not just the Team System customizations but also Visual Studio Extensibility (VSX) as well, has allowed me to use Team Review for other things, not just code reviews. For instance, development tasks that include pointers to specific source code. Willy-Peter Schaub recently created a TeamReview workflow poster (another one of his already famous posters) and a review blog post, take a look at them for the best visual representation of what I am talking about:

The poster:
http://dotnet.org.za/willy/archive/2008/09/01/tfs-new-quick-reference-poster-an-overview-of-teamreview.aspx 

Willy-Peter's blog post about TeamReview:
http://dotnet.org.za/willy/archive/2008/08/26/a-quick-look-at-teamreview.aspx

Team System Web Access SP1 Released!

The product team just released some really cool features in SP1, including multi-language installation, pre-filling fields from the URL (Query String), sharing ad-hoc queries, and more. Check it out:

Announcement:
http://blogs.msdn.com/edhintz/archive/2008/08/29/team-system-web-access-2008-sp1-power-tool.aspx

Download:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3ECD00BA-972B-4120-A8D5-3D38311893DE

Enjoy!