Store non-domain credentials

 

 

As a contractor, if you are using your laptop at the client place, your account would be on a different domain than the client's.So, every time you log into TFS, it would prompt you for user id and password (on the client domain).Tired of typing your user name and password ?? There is a way to store the client domain credentials.

 

Go to Control Panel => User Accounts =>Advanced Tab=> Manage Passwords. You can add and entry and enter the Client domain name and credentials. The next time you open VS to connect to TFS, you wont be prompted, it will use the credentials you stored in Stored Username and Passwords list.

Technorati Tags: TFS username,Domain

Fully Qualified Domain name and TF30162

 

TF30162: Task "SharePointPortal" from Group "Portal" failed

Allright..this is a familiar error message you get when you try to create a team project in TFS 2008 using Visual Studio Team Explorer 2005.There is a hotfix that's available that Brian Harry has blogged about. But I was trying to create a Team project on TFS 2008 using Visual Studio Team Explorer 2008. Why did I get this message?

Usually, I am not able to access my TFS Server with the netbios name. I will be able to access the server  only with the FQDN(Fully Qualified Domain Name).So, the project creation wizard fails when I try to create a project because its unable to resolve the server name. However, I am able to create a  team project from the server by RDPing into the server. So, I figured it was a name resolution issue and it turned out to be right. This also fixes the regproxy issue that wrote about in my last post

I did "the following ..." and I was able to create my team project successfully.

"the following"

From Buck Hodges blog post

"Configuring Team Foundation Server to use fully-qualified domain names

This week the following question came up.  I've seen this come up before, and there are probably forum threads on it, but I figured I'd post it here.  Bill Essary provided the answer to the question.  As always, keep notes on what you do so that you can undo it if necessary.

Question

Is there a way to configure TFS to use fully-qualified domain names (FQDN, e.g., tfsserver.mycompany.com) for TFS, WSS, and Reporting Services?

Answer

1) Run "tfsadminutil activateat <FullyQualifiedDomainName>"

2) Update the following registry key with the FQDN: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\TeamFoundation\ReportServer

3) To force FQDN references in e-mail notifications, set TFSUrlPublic in the TFS root web.config file to http://<FQDN>:8080.

There are a handful of other places where the TFS URL is stored, but they typically wouldn't matter if the goal is to ensure that all public access to the server is done via FQDN.  The ones that are missed govern communication local to the TFS AT (ex: TFS scheduler prodding TFS warehouse).  If you want to get them all, use the SSL-only configuration topic for TFS as a guide.
4) Add the domain to the Intranet Zone or Trusted Sites list in IE for all clients (see KB 303650)

If you are using TFS 2008 with SharePoint 3.0 (or Microsoft Office SharePoint Services 2007), you will need to do the following as well.

After following the steps above with TFS2008 + WSS 3.0 you will observe that when you try to access the team portal using http://FQDN/sites/TeamProjectName you will be automatically redirected to http://NETBIOSNAME/sites/TeamProjectName.

This behavior is by design and is caused by alternate access mapping. In order to avoid this you will have to create a custom alternate access mapping which has the FQDN as the internal URL and as the public URL.

1. Open WSS3.0 Central Administration
2. Click on Operations tab
3. Click on Alternate access mapping
4. Click the Add Internal URLs button
5. In the dropdown select the default website (port 80)
6. Enter the FQDN in the textbox
7. Set the Zone to Custom"

RegProxy

Problem: Little red crosses appear on the Documents and Reports folders under the Team project. The documents and Reports now become unavailable from the Team explorer.

Scope: After a successful installation of the Team foundation server on a dual server environment, we came across this problem when accessing any team project using Team Explorer from the client tier computer.

Solution

The solution that we found was the regproxy.xml file found under C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\TeamFoundation\Cache\1.0\GuidNameHttp folder was not right.

In this we noticed that the server name did not include the full qualified domain name. After making the change (from the netbios name to the FQDN), the red crosses were gone and we were able to access the Documents and Reports from the Team explorer from a client computer.

1.    RegProxyFileCache_Original
                 Contains the wrong link for the report server and the WSS site under the <ServiceInterfaces> node

   <ServiceInterfaces>
      <ServiceInterface>
        <Name>ReportsService</Name>
        <Url>http://AMSDC1-S-6119/ReportServer/ReportService.asmx</Url>
      </ServiceInterface>
      <ServiceInterface>
        <Name>BaseReportsUrl</Name>
        <Url>http://AMSDC1-S-6119/Reports</Url>
      </ServiceInterface>
      <ServiceInterface>
        <Name>DataSourceServer</Name>
        <Url>AMSDC1-S-6119</Url>
      </ServiceInterface>
    </ServiceInterfaces>
    <Databases />
    <EventTypes />
    <RegistrationExtendedAttributes />
    <ArtifactTypes />
  </RegistrationEntry>
  <RegistrationEntry>
    <Type>Wss</Type>
    <ChangeType>NoChange</ChangeType>
    <ServiceInterfaces>
      <ServiceInterface>
        <Name>WssAdminService</Name>
        <Url>http://AMSDC1-S-6119:17012/_vti_adm/admin.asmx</Url>
      </ServiceInterface>
      <ServiceInterface>
        <Name>BaseServerUrl</Name>
        <Url>http://AMSDC1-S-6119</Url>
      </ServiceInterface>
      <ServiceInterface>
        <Name>BaseSiteUrl</Name>
        <Url>http://AMSDC1-S-6119/sites</Url>
      </ServiceInterface>
      <ServiceInterface>
        <Name>BaseSiteUnc</Name>
        <Url>\\AMSDC1-S-6119\sites</Url>
      </ServiceInterface>
    </ServiceInterfaces>

2.    RegProxyFileCache_ManualBugfixed

This was modified by me.

<ServiceInterfaces>
      <ServiceInterface>
        <Name>ReportsService</Name>
        <Url>http://AMSDC1-S-6119.europe.Company.com/ReportServer/ReportService.asmx</Url>
      </ServiceInterface>
      <ServiceInterface>
        <Name>BaseReportsUrl</Name>
        <Url>http://AMSDC1-S-6119.europe.Company.com/Reports</Url>
      </ServiceInterface>
      <ServiceInterface>
        <Name>DataSourceServer</Name>
        <Url>AMSDC1-S-6119.europe.Company.com</Url>
      </ServiceInterface>
    </ServiceInterfaces>
    <Databases />
    <EventTypes />
    <RegistrationExtendedAttributes />
    <ArtifactTypes />
  </RegistrationEntry>
  <RegistrationEntry>
    <Type>Wss</Type>
    <ChangeType>NoChange</ChangeType>
    <ServiceInterfaces>
      <ServiceInterface>
        <Name>WssAdminService</Name>
        <Url>http://AMSDC1-S-6119.europe.Company.com:17012/_vti_adm/admin.asmx</Url>
      </ServiceInterface>
      <ServiceInterface>
        <Name>BaseServerUrl</Name>
        <Url>http://AMSDC1-S-6119.europe.Company.com</Url>
      </ServiceInterface>
      <ServiceInterface>
        <Name>BaseSiteUrl</Name>
        <Url>http://AMSDC1-S-6119.europe.Company.com/sites</Url>
      </ServiceInterface>
      <ServiceInterface>
        <Name>BaseSiteUnc</Name>
        <Url>\\AMSDC1-S-6119.europe.Company.com\sites</Url>
      </ServiceInterface>
    </ServiceInterfaces>

 

View Solution in Visual Studio 2005

Wonder why your solution does not show up when you create a new project? It’s a setting in Visual studio

1. Go to Tools|Options. This will bring up the following window

2. Click on Show all settings check box

 

SccSwitch

This post is intended for people that have just implemented TFS in your development environment and are still switching between VSS and TFS Version control.

A way to switch between source control providers is by changing the registry key.But the SCC Switch is a utility that makes the job real easy. You do not have to mess with the registry keys anymore.As the name implies, this utility is for switching between Source Control providers.

The SccSwitch utility provides a GUI that does this for you in the click of a check box.

http://cid-0d9bc809858885a4.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/DevHawk%20Content/Articles/SccSwitch.zip

1. Extract this to your Local Machine ( Not to a network drive)
2. Open the folder and run the SccSwitch.exe utility
3. The following dialog box shows up

1. It lists all the SCC providers that are installed in your local machine
2. Click on the Microsoft Visual Source Safe ( the first one) for making VSS as your Version control provider
3. Click on Microsoft Team Foundation Server MSSCCI provider ( the third one) for making Team Foundation Server as your version control provider

Tip: You can add this to your Visual Studio .NET 2003 IDE’s external Tools list, so you would not have to locate and open the SCCSwitch.exe every time you want to change your source control provider

To do this

In Visual Studio .NET 2003,

1. Tools=> External Tools=> Add

Now you will be presented with the dialog box asking what external tool you want to add

1. Enter the Title as SccProvider (or any name that helps you identify this utility)
2. In the Command box, click on the ellipsis to navigate to the SccSwitch.exe file
3. Leave the Arguments and Initial Directory text boxes as they are.
4. Click OK

Click on SCCProvider menu item to change your SCC provider

Work Item template editor

THIS APPLIES TO TFS 2005

The work item template editor (WTE) comes in handy when we have a lot of work items that have repeating data in them for the most part. If you have wanted a template which you could derive from and just fill the fields that you wanted to (halfway through your project, you realize a new customized work item type might make things a lot simpler)..Voila!!!…that’s precisely what work item template editor power toy lets us do.

 

 Its inside the Show Template Tool window under the Work Item Templates menu item 

Follow these steps to create a new work item template and make it the default template.

 

1.      Go to Show template tool window.

2.      New template is one of the menu items in the Show Template tool window. Click on that to bring up the Select work item type window.

 

3.       Choose the work item you want to create a template for. (Example: Bug)

 

Note that there are 3 Required fields in the bug work item and as many as 10 fields totally not including the tabs. By setting a template for this work item, you can fill in the fields and attach files/Create links etc and then use that template to create as many similar work items as you want. Isn’t that a nice to have??

4.      To set that as your default template, just right click on it and click on Set default template.

5.      Now, when you need to create a new work item from the default template, just click on the Work Item Templates under the Team menu and choose New work item from the Default template

 

Power tools for TFS 2005

I have been roped in for a really exciting new TFS gig which I am about to begin in a couple of weeks. So, in an effort to add value to the client by providing more than what they ask for, I started researching on the cool new power toys that make life easier when dealing with TFS. I must say that I was particularly thrilled with the Best Practices Analyzer and the Work item template editor.

In this, I am going to go over installing the power toys and using the Best Practices Analyzer. In my next post, I will go over the Work Item template editor.

Assumptions:

INSTALLING POWER TOYS (Sept 2007 release)

The power toys could be downloaded from here. It is the Sept 2007 release of the power toys and most probably the last one that will be released by MS for TFS 2005 version.

1. Download and install Windows power shell 1.0 from here for Windows server 2003

Download and install Windows power shell 1.0 from here for Windows XP

Before installing the power toys, we need to install Windows power shell 1.0 (prerequisite for installing BPA). If you do not need to install BPA, you could click next on the install window and it will skip BPA installation.

2. Download and install Domain-Specific Language Tools for Visual Studio 2005 Redistributable Components (DslToolsRedist) from here

Before installing the power toys, we need to install DslToolsRedist (prerequisite for installing WTE). If you do not need to install BPA, you could click next on the install window and it will skip BPA installation.

3. Now run the tfpt (powertoys) executable that you downloaded.

Verify the installation by going to Start –> All Programs to see if you have Microsoft Team foundation server 2005 power toys is available.

Best Practices Analyzer

The Best practices Analyzer (BPA) scans your server to discover issues in TFS deployment. There are two types of scans

i. A pre-install scan, in case of a pre installation scan

ii. Health check in the case of a post installation.

It gathers information from all the parts that are affected by TFS installation. It does not modify any system settings. As the name suggests, it is just an Analyzer. This can be run both on the client and server. I am going to be showing the server-side scan to verify TFS installation.

Step 1

Open the TfsBpa.exe from Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2005 Power Tools-> Microsoft Visual Studio Team System Best Practices Analyzer as shown below.

Step2

Select “Start a new scan” in the Welcome to Team Foundation Server Best Practices Analyzer window.

Step 3

Note the scan type is Health Check, which means it is a post installation check. Also note that the Perform Scan on dropdown box has “Team Foundation Server only” option. This means that we are about to do a post installation check on the server side. You can give it a scan name and save it as a scan agent. This would be then available as an option on the Welcome to Team Foundation Server Best Practices Analyzer window

This took me around 5 to 10 minutes. This time would depend on your system’s state. The scan does a

1. Health check on the Server

2. It does an install check on the ATDT (because it is a single server installation)

The link above the Scan results shows a report of your scan. There are different views available for the report, like tree view, list reports etc. There are also different types of items. Informational items are those that won’t affect the functioning of the TFS server. Critical items are those that will have an impact on the functioning of the server. An example of critical items is disabled service accounts. If there is an error in this report itself, it means that there is something wrong with the tfsreports account, as this tool uses the tfsreports account to run this report.