When working with web applications we tend to use MSDeploy for distribution. Our TFS build box, as well as producing a _PublishedWebsite copy of the site, produce the ZIP packaged version we use to deploy to test and production servers via PowerShell or IIS Manager To create this package we add the MSBuild Arguments …

To make sure all our Word documents are consistent we use a Word template that include VSTO action pane. This allow us to insert standard blocks of text, T&C and the like, and also makes sure document revisions and reviews are correctly logged. We have used this for years without any issues, but I recently needed …

TFS 2013.2 got RTM’d last night and is available on MSDN; interestingly Visual Studio 2013.2 is still only an RC, we have to wait for that to RTM. As we had a good proportion of our team at Build 2014 I took the chance to do the upgrade today. It went smoothly, no surprises, though the installation phase (the middle …

Looking forward to speaking at Techorama in May, great range of speakers and subjects. Hope to see you there, for ticket details see http://www.techorama.be/tickets/

Our testing environments are based on TFS Lab Management, historically we have managed deployment into them manually (or at least via a PowerShell script run manually) or using TFS Build. I thought it time I at least tried to move over to Release Management. The process to install the components of Release Management …

Background The TFS Community Build Extensions provide many activities to enhance your build. One we use a lot is the one for StyleCop to enforce code consistency in projects as part of our check in & build process. In most projects you will not want a single set of StyleCop rules to be applied across the whole …

Rik has just done a post on upgrading our SCVMM 2012 instance we use with Lab Management to 2012 R2, a good few gotchas in there as you might expect. Well worth a read

I have just had a guest blog post published on the Microsoft UK Developers site ‘Migrating a TFS TFVC based team project to a Git team project retaining as much source and work item history as possible’. It discusses alternatives to using TFS Integration Platform to migrate source code and associated work items.

A clarification blog post I wrote on what to do if you have multiple SCVMM servers in your network and want to use TFS Lab Management has just been published on the Microsoft Application Lifecycle Management blog. For more information on best practices with TFS Lab Management have a look at the ALM Rangers guide

There is a call for speakers for DDD South West on the 17th of May in Bristol. I have submitted as proposal, are you going to? For more details see http://www.dddsouthwest.com/