The following post describe some minor issues encountered when trying to set the SQL tracing within a load test of visual studio 2008. For a little back round, it is possible to set you load test run settings to read a SQL trace file that includes all the database request request that took longer than a set amount of time. This will show up in you load test results (as a SQL trace table as explained here) and can be used to help in finding potential bottlenecks with the application under test. ... [More]

The following post describes a problem that can occur when installing or upgrading TFS 2008. We have encountered this error a few times and maybe these tips can save someone a little time. If you are upgrading or installing TFS 2008 and near the end of the install the following pop-up occurs Do not cancel just yet, not all is lost. The installation is try to validate this installation by going to the following URL: http://localhost:8080/Services/v1.0/ServerStatus.asmx. You can open up a... [More]

The following post describes a problem we had with a TFS instance where queries run against the description field where not returning any values. Specifically, the "Contains" operation on system.description or on the user entered contents of the history fields was not working. (on a side note, the following codeplex utility really helps doing queries much faster across multiple fields http://www.codeplex.com/searchworkitems) In TFS the work item data in multi-lines field (plaintext ... [More]

We encountered an issue when we set up a TFS warm by stand by tier on a window server 2008 machine at a client site. The set up of TFS application tier “warm stand by” went well. The steps to set it up are in the section “How to: Configure a Standby Server for the Application Tier in the TFS installation guide” of the Team Foundation Server 2008 installation guide. We choose to set it up using a DNS host. Once we ran the activateAT command to specify the virtual server name we had selected,... [More]

When installing TFS 2008 on a windows server 2008, it is important to select the proper rules in IIS 7 prior to installing TFS 2008. This is important because the TFS installation will no do this check for you. We had the following happened that made me wonder of my sanity. TFS application was completely installed without issue but the "Visual Studio Team Foundation Server Task Scheduler" service was not starting. In the event log, the error was an TF30069: An unexpected condition h... [More]

A quick post on a useful tool on codeplex. If you ever need to bulk-load multiple reports onto your TFS SQL reporting services, I recommend using the RSS explorertool. With this tool you can select a local folder that will update all reports on SSRS. This is much better than having to manually upload every report one at a time. Once you install the tool, you will simply have to add a connection or edit the localhost connection; for example; http://<server name>/ReportServer/ReportService2... [More]

I came across the following work item rule request for which the implementation is not so straight forward for those unfamiliar with tfs work item customization. The request is to “have a "Resolution" field on our Bug work item that is used by developers to describe the changes made to resolve the issue.  We'd like this field to be read-only for all states until the dev changes the state to "Resolved". To implement that you would do the following within the bug.xml (c... [More]

Hi, lately I had been doing work item customization on work item types that exist within multiple team projects (in my case the bug work item). The work item is still using the Integration Build field (you may also be using the Found In (Microsoft.VSTS.Build.FoundIn) field) which team build updates upon each successful build. When you use Team Build the first time within a team project, TFS automatically adds a global list to the Integration Field field in a format “Build - <team project na... [More]