TFS 2010 Requirements Management Guidance Ships!

As we near RTM for Visual Studio 2010, we are going to start seeing more and more information being release providing guidance on the installation, configuration, and usage of Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010.  One of the latest guidance project to be release by the Rangers is the Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Server Requirements Management Guidance.

“This Ranger solution addresses the People, Process, and Technology guidance for Requirements Engineering (RE) using Team Foundation Server. The goal of this guidance is to provide formalized Microsoft field experience in the form of recommended procedures and processes, Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server configurations, and skill development references for the Requirements Engineering discipline of your application lifecycle.”

This release includes the following packages (which can be downloaded separately or together in a single package):

1. Introduction: RM Rangers Guide to the Complete Guide
2. Requirements Management Planning
3. Requirements Traceability
4. Analysis and Breakdown
5. Requirements Elicitation
6. Requirements Specification
7. Requirements Validation
8. Requirements Change Management and Approval
9. Requirements Management checklist sheet

Each of the above sections is packaged as a zipped Microsoft Word (.docx) document.  If you do not have Microsoft Word installed, you can download and install the free viewer from here.

Team Foundation Sidekicks for TFS 2010

Attrice has released version 3.0 of their (most useful) Team Foundation Server Sidekicks for Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta 2.  This set of utilities has been sorely missed since TFS 2010 was first made available for testing.  This release has pretty much the same functionality as version 2.4 (for TFS 2005/2008) with the following exceptions:

• Permissions Sidekick: this sidekick is not available in this release (to be added back in 2010 RTM timeframe)
• Build Type editing (VS integration only): this feature is not available in this release
• Dynamic History support (VS integration only): the History toolwindow is updated only when it is visible alongside with Source Control Explorer and single instance of the window exists (in 2010 History toolwindow may have multiple instances)

Read more about this release here – you can download version 3.0 directly from here.

VS 2008 & 2010 - Virtual Machine Images

If you’re looking for a set of virtual machines for testing Visual Studio 2008 or 2010 and/or Team Foundation Server 2008 or 2010, then you’re in luck!  Brian Randell has just posted about a new set of virtual machine images ready for downloading.

For the 2008 images, the new expiration date is January 31st, 2011.  The 2010 images expire much earlier due to the nature of the beta products – April 9th, 2010.  However, by that time, it’s hoped that the final release of the 2010 products will be out, or if not (because of the delayed launch), then at least a new release candidate should be available by that time.

There are a total of seven images – four 2008 images and three 2010 images.

Read the full post for details.

Final TFS 2010 Beta 2 Patch Available

As of today, the final TFS 2010 Beta 2 patch is being made available.  The list of fixes include:

• If, in the connect dialog, the URL with “/tfs” fails to connect, fails back to base URL (minus “/tfs”).
• Removed an extraneous error that occurred when connecting to a CodePlex with the 2010 Team Explorer.
• Fixed an error that affected connecting to TFS using HTTPS over the Internet from behind an ISA proxy that requires authentication. (This affected people connecting to CodePlex over the Internet.)
• Improved performance when using Crtl-A to select multiple Labels.

You can download the patch from here or here (note: the second link is still in the process of being published so it may not be active for a few hours).

(read this announcement on Brian Harry’s blog)

As announced a few days ago, the originally planned launch date for Visual Studio 2010 has been pushed back several weeks so there are now plans to publish an interim release candidate (RC).  The RC is currently scheduled for release during February, 2010 so you shouldn’t have to wait too long between today’s patch release and the next publicly available release.

Visual Studio 2010 Launch Pushed Back

A couple of months ago it was announced that Visual Studio 2010 would launch on March 22, 2010.  Today, Microsoft announced that, due to extensive feedback (e.g. regarding performance issues, etc.), the official launch will be pushed back a few weeks.

Because of the extended beta period, Microsoft will be providing a Release Candidate, currently scheduled for February, 2010, with a broad “Go Live” license.

I believe this is a great move on Microsoft’s part as it will give them a little more time to “get it right” and will also provide the public with another “Go Live” version for testing and development purposes prior to the official launch.  So, now you won’t have to wait until the end of March next year to get an updated version of VS 2010 but you will have to wait a little longer to get the final (hopefully better) product – not a bad trade-off.

Read more about it here and here.

TFS 2010 Beta 2 Power Tools Released

For anyone that’s been using Team Foundation Server for any amount of time, odds are you’ve also been making use of the Team Foundation Server Power Tools (if not, then they’re well worth a look).  If you have been taking advantage of Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta 2’s “Go Live” license then you’ve had to make due without the enhanced functionality provided by the TFS Power Tools.  That is, until now.

The Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta 2 Power Tools have been released and are now available for download.  Here are the links:

• Team Foundation Power Tools
• TFS MSSCCI Provider

Brian Harry has a great post on the various details here.

Note: this is a pre-release version of the TFS 2010 Power Tools.  The final version will be released around the same time as Visual Studio 2010 (March 22, 2010).

Presentation Slides

Today concludes my run of talks (at least for the next few weeks :-) that I’ve been giving over the past few weeks so I thought I’d post the PowerPoint decks in case anyone might find some use from them.  With that said…

• An Introduction to Silverlight 3 – presented at the Farm Credit Services of America internal User Group.
• VSTS – What’s in it for me? – presented at the Omaha Team System User Group,  Dubuque, IA .NET User Group, and Tulsa TechFest.
• Team Foundation Build 2008 – Automating the Build Process – presented at Tulsa TechFest.
• Using Team Foundation Build 2008 in the Real World – presented at Tulsa TechFest and the Tyson Developer Conference.
• Keeping Up with C# – presented at the Tyson Developer Conference.

Team Foundation Sidekicks Updated (v2.4)

First of all, if you are using Team Foundation Server and don’t currently make use of the Team Foundation Sidekicks (from Attrice Corporation), you should.  That said, Attrice has released an update (v2.4) to their current set of Team Foundation Sidekicks.

This update resolves a few issues with the previous release as well as one new feature - “Users View Sidekick”, which offers the following features:

• Display all users in Valid Users group on TFS server
• Search users list by user name or display name

This is the last planned release that will support TFS 2005/2008.  All future enhancements will target TFS 2010 with a beta (for VS 2010) possibly available by the end of the year.

For more information:

• http://www.attrice.info/blog/2009/11/12/team-foundation-sidekicks-2-4-release/
• http://www.attrice.info/cm/tfs/index.htm

Cross Platform Support for TFS Gets Better

Yesterday, Microsoft announced they will be purchasing the Teamprise-related assets of SourceGear.  The Teamprise tools allows software developers to take advantage of various features of Microsoft’s Team Foundation Server (e.g. work item tracking, automated builds, and reporting features) from other environments such as Macintosh- and Linux/Unix-based systems.  There is also an Eclipse plug-in that provides functionality almost identical to that of the Team Explorer client that integrates with Visual Studio.

Having this technology more accessible (e.g. via Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate) will no doubt go a long way in helping development teams that work across multiple platforms (e.g. .NET, Java, etc.) work and plan with an integrated set of ALM tools.  Having those tools integrated into their development environment of choice – Visual Studio or Eclipse, is the icing on the cake.

The Teamprise technology will be available with Visual Studio 2010 and can be acquired in one of several ways:

• Purchased separately with one TFS CAL (for approximately $799).
• Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN will include the Teamprise technology.
• Free upgrade to the Microsoft branded product to all current Teamprise owners once released.

Support will continue to be offered by Teamprise until the Microsoft branded product is released, at which time, Microsoft will take over support.

More Information:

• Press Release
• http://www.microsoft.com/pathways/teamprise/
• http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry/archive/2009/11/09/microsoft-has-acquired-the-teamprise-client-suite.aspx
• http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=4473

Visual Studio 2010 “Live” Sessions

Starting today (November 3rd, 2010), a series of Microsoft Office Live Meeting sessions will be hosted presenting on various features of Visual Studio 2010.  Whether you’ve already spent a lot of time with the Visual Studio 2010 betas or you’re new to the product, these sessions will be a great source of information.

• Nov 3rd 10:00-11:00AM -Getting Started with IntelliTrace (formerly the “Historical Debugger”) by Habib Heydarian and Justin Marks
• Nov 4th 10:00-11:00AM - Getting Started with SharePoint Development in Visual Studio 2010 by Boris Scholl
• Nov 5th 9:00am-10:00am - A Lap Around Visual Basic in Visual Studio 2010 by Lisa Feigenbaum
• Nov 5th 10:00am-11:00am - Getting Started with Managed Extensibility Framework by Glen Block
• Nov 6th 10:00-11:00AM - Getting started with Design and Discovery Tools (Architecture) by Mark Groves

All times listed are PST and all sessions will use the same LiveMeeting connection information as follows:

LiveMeeting:	https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/0000000379_103/join?id=76P755&role=attend&pw=p%2C%2Fzk2K%7CM
Conf call:	Toll Free (US Only): 866-500-6738
Toll:	203-480-8000
Participant code:	#198585

If you do not already have the Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 client installed, you can save yourself a little time by installing it now (rather than waiting for the meeting to start).