Call for User Group Speaker/Topics

For those of you that regularly attend the Omaha Team System User Group meeting (in Omaha), you’ve no doubt noticed that we missed the last couple of meetings.  It turns out we had scheduling conflicts that prevented us from having the March meeting and the arrival of my latest son (see: Getting Back On-line) prevented us from having the meeting last month.

Looking forward to the next meeting on July 26th, we are in need of a speaker.  If you have a topic that you would like to discuss and are willing to present on, please let me know.  If there are topics you would like to discuss but do not want to present on, let us know about those as well.  If we receive enough topic ideas, we may just have an open discussion group in lieu of an actual presentation.

I look forward to seeing everyone at the next meeting!

NOTE: Due to some recent server changes the normal Omaha Team System User Group site is not currently functioning (www.otsug.org).  For the time being, we are making use of the Omaha Microsoft Technology Group site for providing event and scheduling information.  We hope to have the original site up and running again soon.

Getting Back On-line…

It’s been a little quiet on this blog lately...

A few months ago, my wife and I started looking for a new house in anticipation of our fourth child showing up on or around May 23rd.  After extensive searching, and even more extensive negotiations, we finally settled on a house and went through the process of buying it.  We closed on the house on April 28th and spent the next week cleaning and painting.  We officially moved in on Saturday, May 7th.  Although we had most of the contents of the “old” house at the “new” house, we still had to put it all away.  No worries, the baby wasn’t due for 16 days!

Turns out, the baby (Ian) decided to join us in this world the very next day – May 8th!  Needless to say, our moving/organization plans pretty much came to a screeching halt.  Well, now it’s four weeks later (it was all a blur!) and things are finally starting to settle down a bit.

Although I’ve kept up with some of the goings-on of the world around me over the past month I’ve definitely fallen behind.  I look forward to getting back into the swing of things because the one thing I love more than the ever-changing landscape of software development is the sharing of the knowledge and experiences I pick up on a day-to-day basis.  So, if you read this blog – and care [ :-) ] – I will be making several posts over the next few weeks as I catch back up.  As usual, most of these posts will be in the general category of Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server.  However, I also have a few other topics planned as well :-)

Architecture Tooling Guide for VS 2010 Ultimate

The Architecture Tooling Guidance for Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate has been updated to version 2.1.

What is It?

If you’re not familiar with the Architecture Tooling Guidance, here’s a quick description (as taken from the guidance):

This guidance discusses scenarios of using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, primarily focusing on the Modeling tools, to help you understand the tooling and ensure that your software system meets the expected requirements.

There is also some guidance included on building extensions using the Visual Studio 2010 Feature Builder Power Tool as well as the inclusion of a set of pre-built Visual Studio ALM Rangers Templates.

Pre-Requisites

Before installing the Architecture Tooling Guidance, you must first install the Visual Studio 2010 Feature Builder Power Tool.

Viewing the Guidance

Once the Architecture Tooling Guidance has been installed, you will get a new menu option under the Architecture menu:

Clicking on the above menu option will display the guidance outline and content in separate panes (as seen below):

To use the Visual Studio ALM Rangers Templates, start a new Visual Studio Project and select VS ALM Rangers Templates in the New Project dialog:

More Information

Follow these links for more information:

• Visual Studio 2010 Architecture Tooling Guidance (main site)
• Architecture Tooling Guide – Visual Studio Extension (install extension from here)
• Architecture Tooling Guidance Version 2.1 (ABE) is Available (blog post by Willy-Peter Schaub)
• Visual Studio 2010 Feature Builder Power Tool (pre-requisite for Architecture Tooling Guidance)

Nebraska Code Camp

Are you looking to get your geek on this weekend?  Are you in the general neighborhood of Lincoln, NE?  If so, then you will want to attend the Nebraska Code Camp this Saturday, April 9th at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

As always, the Code Camp is free and there a lots of great sessions scheduled covering a wide variety of topics.

Date: Saturday, April 9th
Start Time: 08:45 (registration opens at 08:00)
Location: University of Nebraska-Lincoln in Avery Hall

Check out the links below for more information.

• Nebraska Code Camp
• Schedule
• Sessions
• Speakers

Visual Studio Setup Projects being Sunset

If you currently make use of Visual Studio Setup Projects (.vdproj), you may want to start thinking about a transition plan for the future.  As Buck Hodges stated on his blog yesterday (link), Visual Studio Setup Projects will not ship in the next release of Visual Studio.

He recommends (and I agree) looking into WiX – the same installer technology used to create the installation packages for Visual Studio and other miscellaneous Microsoft tools.  If you’re interested in looking at other options, check out the MSDN page Choosing a Windows Installer Deployment Tool.

I, for one, am not sad to see the Visual Studio Setup Projects go by the wayside.  However, I would like to see first-class support for WiX within Visual Studio.

Read the full details here.

OTSUG – What is Visual Studio ALM?

Please join us on Tuesday, March 22nd as Mike Douglas presents on “What is Visual Studio ALM?”  If you are not familiar with the various ALM features in Visual Studio 2010 and TFS 2010, this will be a great opportunity to see these features demonstrated.  You will also have the chance to ask any questions that you may have regarding the Visual Studio ALM tools.

Visit the Omaha Team System User Group web site for complete meeting details.

We hope to see you there!

TFS Project Server Integration Feature Pack

The TFS Project Server Integration Feature Pack has been in beta for a few months now.  As of today, it is being released into the wild and is now ready for download from the MSDN Subscribers site.

As seen on Brian Harry’s blog post, the TFS Project Server Integration Feature Pack enables teams to work together more effectively by:

• Providing up to date insight into portfolio execution, alignment with strategic objectives, and resource utilization of software development projects by leveraging the quantitative data stored in different systems.
• Automating the exchange and sharing of project information across teams and improving coordination between teams using disparate methodologies, like waterfall and agile, via common data and agreed upon metrics.
• Enabling development and project management teams to use familiar tools to collaborate and communicate project timeline and progress such as Microsoft Visual Studio, Project, and SharePoint.

More Information

You can find more information regarding this release via these links:

• Brian Harry’s Post (where the above summary came from)
• Portfolio Management: TFS <-> Project Server Integration in Beta (to get a better idea about what it does)
• TFS and Project Server integration forum (in case you have any questions)

Download Links

• As of today, you can download the TFS Project Server Integration Pack from the MSDN Subscribers site.

Visual Studio Load Test Feature Pack

Last August, Microsoft announced they would be including the lab agents (i.e. licenses) with TFS 2010 as well as Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN and Visual Studio 2010 Test Professional with MSDN (link).  As of today, Microsoft has made another great licensing announcement – the Visual Studio Load Test Virtual User Feature Pack 2010.

With this feature pack, you can simulate as many virtual users as you like without the need for purchasing additional virtual user licenses.  This change only adds to the already great value provided with the Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN subscription.

More Information

You can find more information regarding this release via these links:

• Visual Studio Load Test Virtual User Feature Pack 2010
• Unlimited Load Testing (Brian Harry)
• Visual Studio 2010 enhancements

Visual Studio/TFS 2010 SP1 Released

Service Pack 1 has been officially released for Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010.  The download is immediately available on the MSDN Subscribers Site.  The service pack will be publicly available on the Microsoft Downloads site on March 10th, 2011.

There are several new features included with this service pack, including (but not limited to):

Visual Studio

• Updated local help viewer
• Silverlight 4 tools now included
• Unit tests now supported in Visual Studio 2010 projects targeting the .NET Framework 3.5
• IntelliTrace for 64-bit and SharePoint
• Ability to profile Silverlight code
• Support for IIS Express
• Lots of bug fixes

Team Foundation Server

• Core changes to support future Feature Packs, such as the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server Integration Feature Pack.
• Lots of bug fixes

More Information

You can find more information regarding this release via these links:

• Brian Harry’s Post
• VS 2010 SP1 Changes (includes Test and Lab Manager) (may not be active yet)
• TFS 2010 SP1 Changes (may not be active yet)
• VS/TFS 2010 SP1 Beta has Released (regarding previous beta release)
• Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 Beta Released (regarding previous beta release)

Download Links

• As of today, you can download Service Pack 1 here
• As of Thursday, March 10th, you can download Service Pack 1 here

March 2011 Team Foundation Server Power Tools

The latest version (March 2011) of the Team Foundation Server 2010 Power Tools are now available and can be downloaded via the following links:

• Main Power Tools
• Build Extensions
• MSSCCI plugin (unchanged from previous release)

The primary enhancements in this release include:

• Addressed reported issues in the Backup/Restore Power Tool (yeah!). After the initial release of the Backup/Restore Power Tool, there were several issues that made the tool questionable to use in some cases.  These issues have now been resolved (over 40 bugs fixed!).
  
• Fleshed out the Windows Shell Extension for version control (double-yeah!)  The Windows shell extension for TFS version control commands has been around for a while albeit with limited functionality.  This release fills out the shell extension with practically every version control command available within the Visual Studio UI.  If you prefer working with version control from within Windows Explorer, this will be a great addition!
  
• Took the first step on the path to a bunch of new TFS Build Power Tools (???)  What does this mean, exactly?  As Brian’s post points out (link below), they now have the team responsible for building the internal build tools helping out with the Power Tools.  Based on these comments, it appears they intend to make some of these tools (or some derivative) available in future Power Tools releases.  I had the pleasure of seeing some of these tool demonstrated a couple of days ago and they are simply amazing.

For the full details of this release, check out Brian’s posts, here.